Futurama: Midnight Blue
by Xoanon
Summary: The Planet Express crew is sent to Ice XI, a major resource planet for most of the galaxy. After being attacked shortly after landing, their ship is heavily damaged and they are left to solve the mystery of what happened to the planet and its inhabitants.
1. Chapter 1

"_I see the lonely road that leads so far away,_

_I see the distant lights that left behind the day._

_But what I see is so much more than I can say,_

_And I see you, in Midnight Blue." _

_Electric Light Orchestra – Midnight Blue _

**Chapter 1**

8:55. Only five minutes.

Fry ran down the sidewalk, his red hair moving with the wind and his body aching against the strain of much needed exercise. It was a bright autumn day, the leaves were already changing color on the trees, and he was late for work yet again. Why didn't Bender wake him up? More importantly, why did Bender steal his alarm clock in the first place? He would have to check the local fence near his apartment again.

Now he had only five minutes before Planet Express opened, and if he was late just one more time he was as good as canned. He could still hear Hermes' voice in his mind: _Jus' one more time, delivery boy. Jus' one more time… _He pushed past a crowd, hearing the cursory grunts of various New New Yorkers.

He had just rounded the corner on the edge of West 57th, just two blocks from the building. He was completely winded now, but he could see the Planet Express building faintly in the distance. The giant dark red sphere rounding up from the ground was always a pleasant sight, at least until the latest horror was released from the Professor's lab.

Fry's legs turned to jelly underneath him; he had only four minutes now. He couldn't lose this job, not now. Things were going great for him, he hadn't blown up anything in the past week, and the "days without injuries" chart had finally gotten into the tens. He pushed forward with all his might, only three minutes left now.

Vaulting over a tired bum sleeping near a trash can, he put on the first burst of speed he had experienced in months. The Planet Express building was just ahead, just past the parkway… the parkway that was currently experiencing midmorning rush hour. No time to use the crosswalk, that was for non-late people. He sped on through the crowd at the sidewalk's edge, knocking past a group of Trisolian tourists and some weird guy wearing a long colorful scarf.

And then he was in the middle of the parkway, exhausted and flailing around like a worn out ragdoll. Somewhere in his mind, rationality kicked in: _What were you thinking! Do you have no common sense? _Fry would have responded, if not for the two ton hovertruck barreling down on him.

BEEEP! HONK!

"Gets out a tha' road, yous moron!"

"Jackass!"

"Learn to walk, dimwit!"

Like a startled animal Fry leaped from the left to the right, traffic swerving around him like water around a stone. He was always like this; messing around in places he had no business in, getting into all sorts of trouble, and finally through his own dumb luck managing to get back out again. To the average person it would seem that Philip J. Fry was no more than a common idiot, just a minor inconvenience to be pushed out of the way or into harm's way depending on how bad things were going. But there were a few beings in the cosmos fully aware of Fry's true status as the most important being on Earth, if not the entire universe.

Fry's brain lacked the Delta brainwave; the all-important brain function used to shape human consciousness into its more or less normal mode of operation. Without that wave Fry's brain was constantly befuddled, and he couldn't think straight or stay focused for very long. The lack did come in handy sometimes, like when the Brainspawn attacked a few years ago and stupefied anything emitting Delta waves, but for the most part it was a gigantic nuisance and a real damper on a normal life.

Fry didn't care much about his brain at the moment; he had fallen down on the pavement while another car was zooming towards him. Before Fry could dodge it, however, he was brutally yanked to the left.

Fry's arms were now pinned to his sides by two shiny metallic tubes. He tried to break away but couldn't. The tubes yanked him over the parkway to the sidewalk, where he was dumped unceremoniously. Confused and panting heavily, Fry looked up to see that the tubes were attached to a metal body painted foghat grey. On top of that body was a metallic head armed with the closest thing a robot could give to a smug smirk. A single lit cigar hung in its mouth panel.

Although most people considered robots a nuisance, Fry was glad to see him. Bender was always the mandroid you could count on, for the right price.

"Glad you made it here in once piece, meatbag." he said curtly.

"Thanks Bender," Fry replied, getting to his feet. "I would've been a goner in a few more minutes."

"Yeah, good for you. Speaking of which, you've got about two minutes to punch in or you're fired."

"What? Oh, right! Thanks Bender!"

Fry turned to run, but he instantly flopped to the ground. He whirled around to see that Bender had him caught by the ankle.

"Sorry Fry, you know the rules." Bender said bluntly.

"Okay, fine," Fry sighed, defeated. "It's in my back pocket."

Bender gave a small laugh, and then promptly snatched up the wallet. Fry ran like hell into the building. He could trust Bender with his wallet for a few minutes; not like that last time when some guy outside their apartment tried to sell him his own ID.

He burst through the double doors to find Amy Wong, the Chinese intern from Mars, mumbling Cantonese curses and picking up a stack of papers no doubt spilled from her latest trip to the floor.

"Spleesh, Fry." she said in her usual West Martian slang. "Mellow off before you give yourself a complete cardiac fail, what's with you anyway?"

"No time! Got to get punch in on time! Hermes mad! No good! No good!" Fry spat out, dashing away quickly. He hurried on down the hall, leaving Amy to pick up her papers and wonder why they had dated in the first place.

He hurried down the hall, passing by Dr. Zoidberg in his shambles of an office. From what he was able to glean in his two second view from the doorway, it looked like Zoidberg was getting ready to enjoy a meal of discarded human garbage and leftovers from the Cygnoid place across the street. He was almost to the punch clock…

"Philip J. Fry! Stop right where ya are!"

Crud. Too late.

Fry stopped and complied with the voice's command, holding one hand behind his head sheepishly. Hermes Conrad stood in the lobby behind him, arms crossed with an exasperated look on his face. As resident bureaucrat for Planet Express, it was his job to make sure everything business related was shipshape and bogged down in ten metric tons of paperwork. He was also in charge of the employees, and Fry's tardiness was a constant ache in his side.

Fry tried to explain: "Hermes, it wasn't me. Bender stole my alarm clock…"

But the portly Jamaican would have none of it. "Fry, dis' is de fifth time you've been late for work. Accordin' to de Professuh, dats grounds fuh' indefinite suspension!"

"But Hermes…"

"No buts. Now go clean out your lockuh, you've got ten minutes."

"I... but... Bender… he…" Fry sputtered uselessly, but just then he was interrupted by a voice behind him:

"Its okay, Hermes. He's already signed in. See for yourself."

Fry whirled around yet again. Leela was standing in the doorway to the hangar, dressed in her usual black sweatpants and tank top. Her purple hair tied up in its usual ponytail. Fry breathed an internal sigh of relief, Leela would always stick up for him.

"Leela, don't try and stick up fuh him. I saw him comin' in tru' da' door at 9:02 and tree quartuhs, he's as guilty as a green snake sneakin' into a sugahcane bag."

Fry clenched his mind's fists. _Thanks for the correct time, Bender,_ he thought. Leela's large single eye narrowed slightly, Fry could almost see the gears working behind it in her brain. It only took her a few seconds to come up with a reply:

"Well if that's true, Hermes, then why is Fry's punch card already signed in for today?" she asked inquisitively, holding out the card in question for Hermes to inspect.

Hermes did so with the speed of his namesake, and then drew back puzzled.

"Hmm… Looks like it's all in order. But Fry, why did ya punch out all da' spaces?"

In an instant, Fry's brain thought up the most plausible excuse possible, plausible to him anyway. "Uh, I just wanted to make sure I'd have my punch card filled out still even though I was late to work."

A normal person would see right through the ruse Fry had concocted, but Hermes was a bureaucrat. Bureaucrats didn't care about the large details as long as the paperwork was filled out correctly and with a black or blue ink pen. You could get away with manslaughter with the right paperwork and a bureaucrat wouldn't bat an eyebrow. Hermes looked it over again, and then returned it to Fry.

"Well Fry, lucky fuh' you dat' you filled all dese' out before time, or you'd be in very hot watuh indeed."

Fry and Leela exchanged a relieved glance; the bureaucrat had been sated, for now.

"Now both uh you get to da' conference room. Da Professuh has an important mission fuh' da' both uh' you." and with that, he walked off past the two of them towards the hangar. Fry looked at Leela with a face full of mixed thanks and admiration; she looked back at him with a absolute lack of mirth.

"Thanks for getting me out of another jam, Leela." Fry said, grinning.

"Just promise me you'll be a little more responsible from now on." Leela replied, walking with him down to the hangar. "It took me thirty minutes to punch out your entire card, if you're not more careful you'll be out on the streets next time."

"Sorry Leela," Fry began rubbing the back of his neck again in a sort of charming way. "Like I said, Bender sold my alarm clock this morning."

"Fat lot a' good it did me, I only got forty bucks!" Bender's voice boomed from behind him. "Even when I threw in your wristwatch they wouldn't up the price!"

Fry looked down at his wrist, frowning. He knew something felt wrong when he got dressed this morning.

"But not to worry my meaty friends, rest assured your good pal Bender will no longer hock your prized possessions at such tawdry barter barrels such as Dr. Fency's!"

"Now what this about Fry getting fired?" he added hastily.

"It's okay, we managed to fix it." Leela said dryly, not one to partake in Bender's semi-legal activities. "Just hock something unimportant next time."

"Sounds okay to me, you guys don't have any good stuff anyway." Bender grumbled, falling into place between the two of them. "So what's the adventure this week? Did Nibbler fall down a well? The Professor invented some crazy new device? _All My Circuits_ marathon?

"You know what we're doing, Bender. We've got a delivery." Leela said in her usual take-charge tone. "It's the same thing we do every week."

"But with more crazy adventures than the next leading delivery crew." Fry added cheerfully.

"Alright, but if we find any treasure or long lost superweapons, I get first dibs!" Bender replied, adding a low synthesized chuckle.

* * *

Mere minutes later, the entirety of the Planet Express crew was stationed around the conference table overlooking the main hangar. Behind them was the Planet Express Ship—or as Bender had dubbed it "my backup squeeze"—in its electric mucus coating.

Fry, Leela, and Bender were all seated on one end of the table, Hermes and the Professor on the other. In between sat Amy, in her usual cheerful mood, Dr. Zoidberg, the penniless luckless Decapodian lobster doctor, and Scruffy, the janitor.

Professor Farnsworth, Fry's elderly patron and owner of Planet Express, stirred briefly, his liver spotted skin looking almost ready to tear apart at any violent movement. Those closest to him shifted uncomfortably in their seats, watching his milky white, cataract-laden eyes slide over the entire table. Finally, he spoke:

"Good news, everyone. The company has just secured a lucrative contract with the Royal Family of the mysterious planet Ice XI."

"Ice XI?" Amy inquired. "Isn't that planet no one has heard from for years?

"Oh my, yes," the Professor replied. "There's been a communications blackout in the sector for the past five years. Not only that, it seems that anyone sent to Ice XI never returns. It must be nice there."

Leela and Fry both exchanged nervous looks. The Professor pressed a button underneath the table, and the hologram projector sprung to life. A green 3-D image of Ice XI appeared from the glass lens embedded in the table, slowly rotating alongside its two moons. The professor continued his debriefing:

"Ice XI is sparsely populated, but it contains a valuable resource most of the universe can't possibly live without."

"Hookers?" Bender postulated.

"Water." the Professor corrected bluntly. "Over half the eastern quadrant of the galaxy gets its water from Ice XI, which has made the ruling class of the planet very wealthy indeed."

"Wealth? As in money wealth?" Fry asked eagerly. "How much?"

"Enough to buy Howard Hughes' gold-lined corpse."

The entire group ahhed in succession. At this point Hermes took over.

"You'll be deliverin' heatin' equipment to da' main factory on de' southern continent. Since Ice XI is mostly ice, dey need to import everytin' dat's not made of watuh from offworld."

"The entire planet is made of ice?" Fry asked again, prompting a silent groan from nearly everyone in attendance.

"Of course, you simpleton ass!" the Professor grumbled. "There's not a speck of dirt anywhere on the planet's surface, it's ice all the way down to the core."

"Wow." Fry marveled.

"In fact," the Professor began. "Many scientists theorize that the planet formed from a swarm of comets drawn in by the solar gravitational field. It's actually a very interesting story…"

"Yeah yeah long story boring comets no booze or hookers not interested." Bender said rapidly. "Now let's go get paid!"

Bender's jovial attitude was enough to dismiss the Professor's explanation. Roughly thirty minutes later, Fry and Bender loaded the last of the cargo into the belly of the ship, and Hermes was discussing the last minute checklist with Leela.

"Now remember, de' Iceixicans don't take kindly to thieves. _Especially_ when it comes to watuh'. Bender, no stealin'…"

"No promises, rasta mon."

"Fry, no touchin' any antiquties…"

"Ok, Hermes."

"And Leela, don't change a ting."

"You can count on us. Hermes." Leela said, saluting.

"Good. Oh, and one more ting' I almost forgot. Ice XI has a small comet caught in its orbit. It should be on de' navigational charts."

"Thanks, Hermes." Leela said, climbing up the gangplank to the ship. "We'll contact you once we've dropped off the cargo."

"Good luck." Hermes waved.

The three retreated up the gangplank, watching it snap shut behind them. Before long, they were all situated in the cockpit with Leela at the helm, Bender at the controls, and Fry off in a corner. The hangar bay opened up to the outside. It was a bright sunny day, with the contrails of hundreds of other spaceships crisscrossing the October sky above them. Leela pulled up on the controls, and the ship arched back on its launchpad. Fry leaned forward excitedly in his seat, fighting the tug of gravity. Bender leaned forward even farther, his robotic synapses flooded with thoughts of treasure.

Leela remained calm, as she normally did when being sent on one of the Professor's suicide missions. Her eye was fixated straight ahead, waiting for the driver of the giant aerial garbage scow in front of her to move its bulk away from their launch path. Was she nervous? No. She was an excellent pilot, and Fry was in some ways an excellent delivery boy. His lack wittedness was a problem, but when pushed in the right directions he was manageable enough.

Still, another matter was his growing attraction to her. Leela liked Fry as a friend, but Fry always insisted there was more to it. She didn't want to hurt his feelings, but he was extremely persistent. Always flirting when they were on break, asking for a date at least once a week, and on occasion actually doing his job competently to try and impress her. It was a nice gesture, but she just wasn't interested.

The dark matter engines at the back of the ship roared up to maximum power, a faint shake told her it was almost ready for full throttle. Fry started his countdown…

"10…9…8…"

"7654321blastoff!" Bender cut in at hyperspeed. "Now let's go already!"

Leela hit the gas, and the ship complied instantaneously. The walls fell away and the whole of New New York's skyline appeared before them. The massive buildings stood tall, and the Hudson River spread out below them as they climbed up past the sky traffic lanes.

Blue turned to black and stars began to wink on and off as the Planet Express Ship zoomed into low orbit. Behind them stood the massive globe of the planet Earth, its blue-green carapace reflecting off the light of the sun. Below them stood over ten thousand years of human history and achievements, growing tall and healthy and then passing like dreams. You know, the usual.

The gravity dropped away from the ship, they were now past the Earth's gravitational pull. Fry could just make out the pinpricks of Orbiting Meadows and the Intergalactic Stock Exchange. Past that, the space lanes shined with dark matter exhaust and light reflected from the commuters. It was a beautiful sight.

"Booooring…" Bender said in the loudest possible tone. "The vast majesty of the blackest depths of the cosmos is no match for the greed and treasure seeking nature of Bender!" He rose to his feet, the centerfuge gravity generator already powered on. "So big boots, where be our bounty? Beyond the farthest depths of space-time? Located within the deepest reaches of the Galaxy of Immaculate Horror?"

"Forty light years due space east." Leela checked the coordinator. "Now I'm going to power up the drive, so get ready…"

"Hey Bender, up for a game of "space pirate swordfight"?

"You're on, meatman!"

Leela sighed as the two started on another stupid game of theirs, playing space pirates was irrelevant considering they usually met up with them every couple of weeks. Now with those two clanging together their makeshift swords, it was going to be a very long trip. Unless…

She slowly moved her hand from the steering to the hyperspace thrust; a thin smile began to creep onto her face. She didn't like to do this to them, but darn it if it didn't feel good.

"Ha har! Breach thy last, Frybeard the Orange! Your last hour is at hand!"

"I think not, Black Bender the Fearless! You… um… will die now!"

Leela ignored the two, concentrating on the dark matter feed chute. You had to bleed off just the right amount of coolant to get that extra kick, it was what made Farnsworth's engine the best in the western quadrants. Now if she could keep Fry from knocking her in the head with his cardboard tube…

"Ha! Try to catch me off guard with a swishy maneuver! Clever, very clever!"

"Not as clever as this double thrust! Soon your pirate hookers and bourbon will be mine! Har har har!"

Now for the tricky part, keeping those two distracted while she brought the ship up to drive speed. Ignition in 5… 4…

"Victory is mine! Wait… Bender, is the ship moving faster?"

"Nah, it's just your imagination. Say, what's an imagination?"

3… 2… 1… Ignition.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!" The two slammed back against the wall, pinned their by immense g-forces. Leela leaned back in the captain's seat, taking control of every twist and turn of the ship's massive stardrive. It was going to be a wonderful trip.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Ice XI stood out in space like an icy sore thumb. Every inch of the planet was wreathed in white and grey, thin black tracks from gargantuan mining trains crisscrossed the surface, and the small pockmarks that were left from the ice blocks hefted out of the ground were clearly visible from orbit. That orbit was currently occupied by the DOOP flagship, the _Nimbus_.

It was the pride of the DOOP's interstellar fleet; large, fast, and nearly impenetrable. It had seen over a hundred firefights and rebellions in its prestigious career, and nine times out of ten it had come out with over half the crew still alive and the hull stretched to just below the breaking point. Its massive engines pulsed with the harnessed energy of ten thousand atom bombs; and its the communications desk took in information from across the galaxy and beyond.

Overlooking all this activity on the bridge was the man himself: The Velour Fog, The Exterminationer, blowhard extraordinaire. His name and title was 25 Star General Supreme Commodore Del Macho Grande Admiral Overlord Captain Zapp T. Brannigan. Accompanying him was his assistant, Kif.

Captain Zapp surveyed every inch of his domain, particularly the slowly gyrating female parts of it. Kif merely kept his head down and his mind on his work, namely Brannigan's paperwork. Zapp shifted in his seat, as if trying to form something resembling logical thought. Kif remained uninterested, knowing it would probably be some hackneyed metaphor about the beauty of space or how large breasts were a sign of great intelligence or something.

He then spoke, dramatically and with attempted bravado.

"Kif…" he began. "I'm bored."

_No surprises there, _Kif thought. No matter what the mission was he always managed to make it completely unbearable. He could still remember one time in the middle of the diplomatic mission to Omuris IV when he called the ambassador "a spineless weak willed bed wetting pansy" right to his face, almost causing yet another interstellar war. Granted, he didn't actually know who the ambassador was, but it was still bad manners.

Now they were in orbit around Ice XI, the most strategic of all the resource planets in the eastern galaxy, and he was close to nodding off for another nap. Again! Water was a precious commodity, and pirates from all over would be looking for anything new to exploit. If he could keep his head on straight, he'd get his much needed excitement.

"We're guarding the water source for half the galaxy, sir." Kif replied, making sure to keep every twinge of contempt out of his voice. "Pirates from all over will be looking for any reason to…" It was there that Brannigan cut him off.

"Save your warbling for karaoke night, Kif." he said dismissively. "It's not the pirates I'm worried about."

"Then what should we be worried about?" Kif asked, the irritation oozing back into his voice.

"I'm more worried about those ice-people." Zapp said furtively, as if it were a carefully guarded secret he was telling. "They've got all the cards in one basket, all the shoes up their sleeves and on the other foot. If they felt like it they could cut us all off the day after yesterday."

Kif struggled against informing his captain that the DOOP had several different water producing planets under their control, but he decided against it. It was better to let the captain live out his delusion in peace rather than actively give it more fuel, he would hurt less people that way. Kif still blamed himself for what happened to those good people from Rynar VII, he still woke up screaming sometimes…

Suddenly, the long range scanners picked up an unidentified craft. It was small, streamlined, and heading right for Ice XI's quarantine zone. Kif's keyboard came to life with external images from the _Nimbus_'s monitors, examining their new playmate with great interest. Kif almost instantly recognized the ship, and breathed a small sigh of relief. Now to hide this information from the captain before…

"Hm? What have you got there, Kif?" Zapp questioned, snapping out of his latest fantasy almost on cue.

"Err, nothing sir." Kif muttered hastily, pressing the delete function as rapidly as his motor skills would allow. But before he could do anything more Brannigan merely picked up the data sheet and transferred it to his console. His eyes darted over the information, and then narrowed softly as he looked out over port bow.

"Wellllll…." he said, as if trying to be seductive. "It appears that a close personal friend has decided to stop by for a visit. Kif, ready the docking bay and prep the Lovenasium for its weekly test run. I believe it's high time Turanga Leela and I finish what we started many moons ago..."

Kif groaned silently, he hated prepping the Lovenasium.

* * *

The trip to Ice XI from Earth was much quieter than usual. Leela had let the two down from the wall on the grounds that they end their little pirate game, and now they were both sitting in the back sulking. It was good to know she was in charge.

The giant slush ball rose into view, almost whimsical in the way its grey and white contrasted the icy blackness of space. From orbit they could make out their landing zone near the main factory outside the capital city, and the tiny lights shining around it made it look like a colony of stellar fireflies had descended to the planets surface to mate. It was beautiful, but such beauty was overlooked nowadays. People looked at Ice XI and saw only raw resources and revenue, not the immense beauty of frozen water chunks stacked hundreds of miles high. It was sad, and irrelivant, for they had a job to do.

Leela looked ahead to prep for their landing procedure. Bringing a spaceship down from space had changed a lot since the Stupid Ages, but still the most effective method was clasping your hands together and praying to whatever god you believed in to get you there in one piece. She was just about to do the same when a gleaming gray behemoth caught her eye, a gleaming gray behemoth shaped like a shark crossed with a can of ham…

Her eye widened suddenly. "Oh no." she groaned.

The ship stopped so abruptly that Bender's head separated from his body, flying towards and colliding with the Plexiglas window in front of him. The ship hung there for only a fraction of a moment, like some great green hovering dragonfly, and then shot back out into open space as fast as the laws of physics would allow.

"Uh, Leela." Fry mumbled, still disoriented by the abrupt shifting of his organs. "Don't we have some heating equipment to deliver?"

"Don't worry, Fry." she replied, in a voice far too calm and cheerful to be her own. "I know a couple marketplaces on the way home that'll pay good money for these. Now, when we get back to Earth we tell the Professor that we lost the shipment to roving space banditos, and we never speak of this again. Agreed?"

She smiled at him. Instead of being endearing, it was rather creepy.

Fry's brain went to work instantly. Overly cheerful attitude meant Leela was trying to hide something. Hiding meant guilt. Guilt meant something. Something meant burrito. Burrito meant… Where was he going with this?

"Geez, Leela. Way to ruin a neck socket." Bender grumbled, calling over his body to help pick his head up from the floor. It wasn't the most graceful of things, kicking his head twice in the process. After much Spanish cursing and threats towards most of the human race, he managed to right himself once again.

"Leela, this is about Zapp isn't it?" Fry asked tenderly, knowing that the last person to enquire about it besides Bender was thrown from a fifteenth story window, "Look, maybe if you let me do the talking we could…"

Leela grabbed Fry's jacket and held him roughly half an inch from her face, her gigantic eye filling up his entire field of vision. He could tell she still had that unnerving smile on her face.

"We are going home." she said, in a voice that was now extremely calm, yet at the same time a precursor of immense pain and suffering if the person it emanated from was taken in the wrong direction. "We are dumping this shipment at a barter shop, and we are going to carry on. It's not really a failed mission, more of an alternative route to our financial goal, get the picture?"

Fry gathered up his fleeting remnants of courage, and then promptly lost them again. "Okay, Leela." he said meekly, and Leela let him down softly. Bender, however, was rather distraught with the loss of potential riches, and set out to cajole her back towards the mission.

"Listen, big boots," he said rather pointedly, "We've all had a one night stand we'd like to forget. I myself have had several relations with girls of a less then stellar caliber, and believe me it was not pretty. The point is, Bender needs money, so let's turn this tub around and go get paid and ignore the fact that you got laid!"

Leela refused to listen, and began humming to herself in an attempt to drown out Bender's plea.

"She's not gonna budge, Bender." Fry observed, regaining his composure after being mentally harangued by his captain. "We'd better just go along with it, she still pretty steamed at Zapp."

"Probably, but there's always a plan B when dealing with a woman scorned."

"What's that?"

"Hold this." Bender replied, giving him a small length of rope from his chest panel. "Now don't use it until I give the signal."

"What's the signal?" Fry asked.

Bender lunged at Leela, knocking her from the pilot's seat. The ship careened wildly through space, sending Fry tumbling around the cabin.

"Now, Fry! That's the signal!" Bender yelled, and Fry handed him the rope. Within minutes Leela was set up like a twine ball in the corner, and Bender was at the controls of the Planet Express Ship.

"This is mutiny!" Leela bellowed, struggling to break out of her knots. "When I get out of here, you two are in so much trouble!"

"Arr! The one-eyed wench be brewing up a storm most foul!" Bender cried, lapsing into pirate mode again. "First mate Fry, lock her in the brig!" Fry complied as best he could, despite Leela's numerous attempts to kick him in the groin. When all was said and done, Bender turned the ship back towards Ice XI. All that could be heard in the cockpit was Leela's muffled protests from the closet and Fry shifting nervously in his seat.

Soon enough they were back in radio call range of the _Nimbus_, and the good ship attempted to raise them on the contact channel again. Fry would have hesitated for a good twenty minutes before deciding to answer, but Bender instantly called up the viewscreen. The image of Zapp Brannigan and a very defeated looking Kif Kroker sprang instantly into view.

"Zapp Brannigan hailing Planet Express Ship, state your business in this quadrant or be blown out of the stars! Hey, wait a minute, where's Captain Leela?"

"Captain Leela be no more, foul landlubber!" Bender growled, still on his pirate fixation. "This be Captain Bender Rodriguez of the good ship Booty Hunter!"

Fry had to stifle a laugh.

"Well, if Captain Leela isn't aboard, then I suppose you may as well… Say, what's that noise?"

"Uh, nothing." Fry chimed in nervously, moving to block the closet door. It sounded like Leela had gotten her legs free and was attempting to batter down the door.

"I've got no time for this, ye scurvy dog! Now let us by, or face the wrath of me long guns!" Bender growled. He attempted to turn off the monitor, but at that very moment the door gave way, knocking Fry unconscious and leaving the door open to a very angry Leela. Bender immediately abandoned his pirate act and the captain's chair.

"Ah, Captain Leela, so nice to see your exquisite form out in the open." Zapp said approvingly, obviously flashing back to the night they had had relations on the _Nimbus_.

"Brannigan, so nice to see you again." Leela replied, quickly standing up and walking to the pilot's seat. Fry noticed that she was clenching her teeth in a futile attempt to sound as civil as possible. "Sorry that we can't talk long, we've got a shipment to deliver to the planet's surface, so if we could just get clearance…"

"No can do, missy, this entire quadrant is under DOOP triple lockdown. If I could bend the rules I would, but not even a competent captain such as myself can break the iron law of space."

Leela twitched visibly, every comment of Brannigan's stinging like a hailstorm of knifes in her abdomen. After choking back bile and a torrent of obscene comments, she responded with an unnatural saccharine coating permeating her voice:

"But we really, _really_ need to make this delivery; can you help us out just this once, Big Z?"

Zapp liked it when women used his nickname, and it briefly stoked his ego enough to distract him from other happenings. Fry saw Leela's hands working the console faster than he could track them.

"Well… it's a tempting offer, but I'm afraid the allure of law and order is more alluring than the allure of a lovely woman's allure. Kif, prepare to repel the ship Planet Express."

"I'm sorry sir, the paperwork all checks out." Kif replied smugly, showing him the contract signed by the royal family. Brannigan was still deciding what to do when Leela cut the viewscreen's link. The ship's engines kicked into overdrive as they sped past the _Nimbus_ down into the atmosphere of Ice XI, Fry held on tight as the ship's outer hull began to heat up.

Leela's professional demeanor returned instantly. "Alright, now if you two don't mind, the next time we meet up with Captain Blowhard I would enjoy sparring with him myself."

"How'd that work out the last time?" Bender laughed, not checking to see whether he was outside Leela's grasp. Within three seconds he was in several pieces on the floor, and Leela herself was quietly watching the controls as the ship descended towards their landing zone.

* * *

Zapp watched her go from the deck of the _Nimbus_. The shark had let the minnow out of his net, it seemed, and he was filled with a sense of seductive attraction. Captain Leela had bested him again, how strange. A woman besting a man in mental and verbal combat. It didn't seem possible. But then, this was a brave new world filled with all types of danger and dangerous sexy situations. He turned to Kif, who was busy notarizing the last of Brannigan's paperwork.

"Well, Kif. It seems the minnow has wriggled through the sharks net." Zapp said slowly. "Why does it always seem like women never enjoy the company of a smooth individual?"

"I can think of several reasons." Kif muttered under his breath.

"Oh well, it's a matter for another day. Now, about those ice freaks…"

Kif groaned yet again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Only twenty minutes after touchdown on the surface, Fry was chilled down to the bone. It was colder than Space Hell on the surface of Ice XI; the sky was a magnificent grey, lighter than Bender's foghat grey coating but still dark enough to give the feeling of being trapped under some immense metallic structure. What were those called again?

"Fry, get over here and help unload!" Leela yelled from the other side of the ship.

Fry instantly snapped out of his 'thoughts'. He ran to help Leela, who despite her massive strength was struggling with a large pipe that had broken loose from its couplings. Bender was leaning up against the side of the ship's landing strut, muttering about how the cold was freezing his oil. He had another lit cigar hanging in his mouth, the smoke encircling him before being strung out over their heads by the wind.

Fry helped Leela as best he could with the equipment before dragging Bender away from the ship and towards the exit ramp. They had landed in a glade gashed into the surrounding hills which served as the main landing pad for the capital. The large field was smoothly cut and easy to traverse, almost as if it were carved by lasers instead of human hands. Fry corrected himself; it probably was cut by lasers, everything in the future had something to do with lasers.

Leela was already giving them the rundown on mission parameters: "We've got twenty minutes to deliver this thing and leave before Brannigan tries to find us. It'll take ten minutes to walk to the main entryway, five minutes to clear up the paperwork and have them receive the parts, and, if we're lucky, five minutes to spare for irreverent hijinks and the like from you two."

"Why are you in such a hurry?" Fry asked, pulling his jacket tighter around his neck.

"Iceixicans don't like to be kept waiting. Even the smallest foul up can cost us the deal." Leela replied. "I don't want to be remembered as the captain who lost Planet Express a multimillion dollar deal… like the time _somebody _burned down an entire Methanasian estate."

"I needed a light! How was I supposed to know they'd explode?" Bender said defensively. The Methanasians were still suing for damages Bender had caused to their royal palace and several of their rulers. Leela was definitely still burning about that one, no pun intended.

They reached the edge of the landing pad and looked down. Below them stretched a carved road covered in packed snow and lined with ornate carved sculptures. Like a white snake it led to the main entryway to the capital of Ice XI, a gigantic doorway off in the distance. Fry was completely taken aback by the wonder of the straight road ahead; Leela was more focused on getting their two ton boiler down from the landing pad without breaking anything important.

After several minutes of obscenities, harsh rebuttals, and calling out of faults they managed to traverse half the road, which was much less smooth than their eyes led them to believe. Cracks and bumps pitted the entire surface, making the hovercart bounce with every change in the terrain. So far they were right on schedule, and the air was getting even colder. Even worse were the giant drifts that had piled up on the sides of the road, all of them loose with powder ready to drift off at moment's notice. Even with a jacket and mittens on Fry could feel the bite of freezing air, and so could Leela. She had finally taken the initiative to bundle up in a rather heavy parka. Bender, who was a robot, didn't feel any cold; but still he had to pause every couple of feet to work out the kinks from his servos.

Slowly, the sky above them got darker. The wind picked up, showering them with a growing number of small white flakes. Leela's wrist monitor showed a drop of five degrees in several short minutes. So far so good. Nothing bad had happened and Fry still hadn't screwed anything up.

Yet something didn't seem right on this world. It was simply too quiet, too eerily calm. There were strange things lying in the world around them, small enough to go unnoticed but large enough to make things uneasy. No one had noticed the small cracks and fractures in the statuary lining the snow road, nor the fact that their features had been rounded and made illegible by the wind. Leela had recognized something was amiss early on when there was no one to greet the ship at the landing, but she brushed it aside to continue on with the arduous task at hand. Bender just smoked his cigar.

The door was just ahead, reaching up to nearly the top of the gigantic icy face of the glacier that now loomed in front of them. It was an engineering marvel; a single block hewn out of one of the planet's highest cliffs, carved painstakingly by the local craftsmen, and then fused into the mountainside piece by piece. The Professor had explained how to open the door, in case the Iceixicans weren't waiting for them. But they would wait all the same, if only to show politeness and courtesy.

At the end of the road, there was a small chasm spanned by a carved ice bridge. The road led right up to it. Leela trucked the hovercart past another drift and over the hump, moving fast despite the awful winds and freezing cold. Fry followed along, knowing she was still steamed about Zapp. Every time he dropped in things were bound to take a turn for the worse, and now he was in orbit right above their heads. Leela used to have sort of a thing for him, but after their first meeting on the _Nimbus_ she was completely repulsed. Half of it was his personality, half of it was the fact that she'd slept with him on a lark. Fry didn't know about this.

At the door, Leela had stopped to catch her breath. Fry and Bender caught up with her, Bender again excited about the potential riches he could swipe. For about five minutes they stood in the now bone numbing cold, the only sound being Fry's occasional shivering mutters. Finally, Bender spoke:

"Not that this isn't a great way to spend my time, but what the heck are we waiting for here?"

"For the Iceixicans to open the door. Strange, it's not like them to keep company waiting." Leela replied, checking her wrist-mounted clock. "We'll wait another five minutes just to be safe."

Fry looked in through the door. It was opaque, but clear enough to see some details in the room beyond. Beyond the doors, it seemed, there was a giant hallway stretching deep into the ice mountain, and it didn't look like anyone was on their way to receive them.

"C'mon Leela, it's really cold." Fry whined, hopping up and down to try and retain some warmth. "Can't we just invite ourselves in?"

"No. You heard the Professor, we can't mess this up." Leela said definitively, standing ramrod straight waiting for their unknown emissaries. "Another three minutes and then we'll head in."

"The hell with that, my nuts are freezing!" Bender objected. "And by nuts, I mean the literal nuts holding me together, not the squishy things you humans use for procreation. Now outta my way!"

With three quick motions, Bender opened his chest cavity and took out a small portable chainsaw. Before Leela or Fry could even think of stopping him he had laid into the door, rending out huge chunks of ice from the frame and dropping them onto the ground.

"Bender, stop!" Leela yelled over the din. "If they catch us doing this, we'll all be in serious trouble!"

"Can't talk, chainsawing." was Bender's only reply.

Within three minutes, despite Leela's protests, a good chunk of the door had given way to Bender's efforts. They stepped inside, Leela pushing the cart and grumbling to herself.

The hall was huge, much larger than Fry's already generous estimate of 'really hugelike'. Darkness was the rule here, with the passage being lit only by small electric torches lining the walls. The three moved quickly down the tunnel, stopping only for Bender to inspect the golden connectors holding the torches together. After finding them to be only cheap brassium chromide, they hurried on even faster.

Fry was already impressed by the Iceixicans. Even in such a wondrous age as the mid 3000s he was impressed by even the most mundane of things. It made him rather dangerous whenever he used technology that was beyond his scope of comprehension. The last time he had gotten his hands on a laser slicer he had almost burned down the Professor's workshop. Leela always had to be extra careful when introducing him to new things. He took to them easily enough, but his enthusiasm always made things so complicated.

Ahead of them, the pathway forked. One led down and to the left, the other up and to the right. There were no markings that told which way led to the reception chamber, so Leela decided that right would be their way for now. The passageway was smaller now, less splendorous than the main entryway but still wide enough to drive two hovercars through side to side. Even away from the gathering storm it was still cold, the torches lining the walls giving only light and no heat.

The path wound up, curving back towards the outside after a long circular track through the center of the iceberg. The hovercart nearly gave out after several leagues, but a well placed kick from Leela always got it working again. Finally they emerged into an antechamber of sorts, a circular room carved out of a natural bubble in the ice. The floor, like every other surface, had been packed with snow to avoid accidents. They stepped lightly all the same.

Before them now was another door, one less ornate then the recently chainsawed outer door. Bender was ready to give this one the same treatment, but Leela managed to stop him. She delivered a well place kick to the frozen lock instead and it gave way easily. They stepped into a large chamber, larger than anything they had seen yet on the planet of Ice XI.

It sloped up farther than the eye could stretch, ending in a white dome carved with intricate figures of the planet's historical past. The high walls around them were decked in sculptures, their eyes glistening with ice set in them like jewels. The floor itself had beauty, with a strange overlapping pattern of gold flecked lines crisscrossing under their feet and circling around the room twice before plunging into a center pinnacle raised just above the floor. Even stranger was the fact that this floor was not covered in packed snow, but instead it was ice, clear ice that enabled them to see down into the bowels of the giant city beneath. Below them they saw many more chambers, leading away into the farthest reaches of the planet's crust. Even the largest of them was dwarfed by the iceberg, and their interlocking stairwells and passages wove like a thread through some great ethereal space far beyond the reaches of the prying eyes of the universe.

"Neat." Bender said, snapping a picture.

The room was quiet; there were no torches to be found here. The only light in the room came from a small aperture near the top, and once or twice a small flake fell down to hit Fry in the cheek, stinging him with a cold bee's sting. It was strange that no winter wind came in with it, and that this chamber was much warmer than the others. It was almost like some presence was keeping time here, or that someone had been here before them.

Leela set the cart down near the bottom of the pinnacle. The clatter of it echoed through the large chamber, making Fry realize just how alone they were. What if the royal family never came? Did they go to the right spot? Where did Bender get a chainsaw? All these questions and no answers. It hurt Fry's head to think about it, so he stopped.

Bender, on the other hand, was more than happy to abandon the equipment for greater prospects. After some fruitless attempts to dig the golden wiring out of the floor, he climbed up to the sculptures near the ceiling to dig out the icy sapphires from their sockets. Thanks to the strange properties of Iceixican water, it would stay frozen even if put in someone's pocket or placed next to a heater. It was of debate to many scientists how this was accomplished, due to the universally accepted fact that ice melted when exposed to heat. Many theories reigned on this subject; from the simple ones like the right combination of minerals and chemical reactions to the more fantastic ones like God's uncompromising love. Bender could care less about scientific theory; he only wanted to hock them as fake diamonds.

As Bender clamored about, Leela went over the procedure for the greeting in her mind for the umpteenth time. The Iceixicans were very touchy about their traditions, almost as touchy about the mining rights on their world. The mines here had always been controlled by the royal family, with absolutely no exceptions or outside influence in the matter. They were a very proud and sturdy people, and despite their obvious connections to the galactic community they mostly kept to themselves. It was very rare to see an Iceixican outside their homeworld; for some it was almost like a mobile tourist attraction, for others it was a way to curry favor with the royals.

Fry just stood, looking at the intricate patterns on the floor. The gold stood out in the darkness like a thin line of light in-between the black voids, like some stairway to Yivo that he had seen somewhere before once. The chamber was much more peaceful, in here the now raging storm outside was only a whisper let in by the aperture. It was too quiet. If everything he had glanced from the Professor was true, the Iceixicans were usually right on time. They had been in here for at least ten minutes, which meant someone would have caught them wandering about by now.

"Uh… Leela?" he asked, his voice breaking the silence. "Is anybody coming for us?"

"Of course they are, eventually." Leela said, fiddling with the heater setting on her lojackimator. "Of course, if _someone_ hadn't cut through the door they'd know where we are…"

"Well forgive me for being proactive!" Bender called down from the ceiling, still attempting to pry out the ice sapphires. Fry felt a chill, even in the shelter of the domed room. He felt something strange, almost like they shouldn't have busted in. Then again with Bender it was always safe to assume it wasn't right to bust into places. The darkness that seeped in from under the floor had intensified suddenly, like the bottom of the world had fallen out and the void under it would soon swallow them up whole. No sound penetrated the room. They were all alone and there was no one else on the entire planet. Danger was the word that came to mind, floating ominously around Fry's thoughts.

"Leela, I think we should go." he said suddenly, voicing his objections. "I don't like it here, there's something weird about this place."

"Fry, there's nothing to be worried about." Leela said calmly, worried about the fact that their benefactors had yet to arrive. "Just keep yourself occupied and try not to break anything."

Despite her condolence, Fry still had a bad feeling about this place. He took a step backwards hastily, and suddenly he fell over something jutting out from the glasslike floor. After regaining his senses, he looked down at the strange object in between his feet. It was small, pointed, and jet black. He picked it up. It was lighter than expected, almost like it was made of bone…

A mighty crash rang through the hall. Fry dropped the fragment, and it clattered to the floor soundlessly. Leela's combat instincts went into play instantly and she dropped low, searching around for the source of the noise. Bender's looting went on interrupted.

Another boom, even louder this time. Fry began darting around like a trapped owl, looking for any escape from the growing noise. The curved nature of the room made it sound like the noise was coming from all around them, like the noise was in the room itself. Leela's ears were as sharp as her single eye, but even she couldn't place the source of the din. It was like some mighty Paul Bunyan had started haphazardly felling trees with little to no regard for human life or property.

Then they heard the growls, an undercurrent of feral noises cutting in and out at random intervals. It grew slowly, like a backbeat to some demonic pop song, the same three notes over and over. One high, two low, one high.

It also seemed that the growl was one of many, and that they were overlapping and outperforming each other with the ferocity of a sixty man orchestra. Bender had finally stopped his looting long enough for his sensors to pick up the noise.

"Who turned on the garbage disposal?" he asked.

A final thunderous roar met his query. At the far end of the chamber the wall disintegrated as if struck by a photon ray. Three large figures made their way into the room, their bulk hidden by the darkness of the room beyond them. Even in the semidarkness Fry could make out several details; spikes traveling the entire length of the bodies, spindly legs that disappeared into a much too small waistline, and a face that could only be described as a mess of icicles soldered together. They said nothing, only looking at their new quarry with unblinking red eyes.

It was Bender who spoke first:

"Well, we're boned."

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Just wanted to start adding chapter commentary. Be honest, how am I doing so far? Reviews? Anyone?

-Xoanon


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

It had been a fight to remember, one that would fuel therapy sessions for many years to come.

Shattered blocks of ice lay on the floor where three monsters had once stood, while two humans stood beside them gasping for much needed air. Leela's wrist laser had helped make short work of one, but it had run out of charge before the other two had completely melted. Bender managed to help—somewhat—by sawing large hunks out of them. His incessant stabbing motions had kept one occupied long enough for Leela to break part of the floor underneath and send the other toppling into the abyss below.

Leela had never fought so hard in her life. She was tired, every muscle ached, but more importantly she was furious. Those stupid Iceixicans hadn't even bothered to show up on time! It was now roughly fifteen minutes after the rendezvous time, and still there wasn't hide nor hair of any dignified reception. She made a silent vow to redouble her waiting efforts.

Fry, meanwhile, was in a fetal position of the floor. He was in complete and total shock, having been rushed by the creatures mere seconds after their unceremonious arrival. He was mumbling something about abominable snowmen, and interjecting that with random bars from 'I'm Walking on Sunshine' by Katrina and the Waves. Bender was still picking through the remains of their attackers, hoping to round out his swag with nutrients he could sell on the black market.

"Geez, what've they been feeding these guys?" he grumbled as he poked over another mass of frozen meat like substance. "It's like slurry if they took out all the dolphin meat."

Neither human answered that brusque statement. Leela was still catching her breath, and Fry was still busy imitating the notes to his favorite song. With nothing more to say, he revved up his chainsaw for another go at the remains.

Leela completed her two minutes hate, then turned her attention to the quivering mass on the floor. Fry had just finished the first part to the song and was about to start the chorus. She gave him a kick in the ribs. Not a hard one, just hard enough to snap him back to reality. He sat up slowly.

"Leela… Are we gonna die?" he said weakly.

"No, Fry." she replied soothingly. "Well, maybe if we can't get out of here, or if we get trapped by more of those things, or if they can find us through heat detection… But other than that we'll be just fine."

Fry had resumed his rocking and humming. Bender had finished his vulturine task and was now drafting a cigar to celebrate a job well done, his feet propped up against the shattered blocky head of one of the monsters. Leela hauled Fry to his feet, one handed.

"Listen, Fry. I know this is very scary, and these things are probably much faster than us and much more intelligent, but we'll make it out of this. I promise."

"Really?" Fry stuttered hopefully.

"Yes. As long as you two follow orders, we'll be off this massive ball of death by sundown."

"And by 'sundown' you mean 'right now', right?' Bender chimed in.

"Exactly. Let's go." Leela said determinately.

They decided to leave the equipment for anyone who dared to salvage it. Since it was third-rate junk anyway Planet Express wouldn't be at much of a loss. They left the chamber, passing back through the antechamber and down the frozen hallway. They managed to make it to the great hall without incident, darkness still enveloping everything except for a broken patch of white at its far end.

They were about to make a move, but then a gleam caught Leela's eye. It was yet another icy monster. Fry nearly let out a scream, but was pulled back by Leela before he could unleash his ear shattering burst. Silently, she pondered their options. Either she could have someone distract the monster, or they could attempt to creep by and run for the ship. After some deliberation, she chose the second option.

It stood seven feet tall, stooping low to the ground almost as if it was on the verge of sleep. The sunlight glanced off its icy coating, which glistened with thousands of tiny icy barbs and hairline fractures. It was pale, a ghostly white, almost transparent if not for the strange pulsating lumps that crisscrossed the surface of its skin. Its breath was a low ragged moaning, like wind through a deserted cavern.

Leela moved first. She crossed in the doorway, the shadows hiding her easily. Fry and Bender followed, the both of them somewhere between immensely focused and scared beyond all reason. They made their way down the tunnel slowly, taking small steps, all the while keeping eyes and eye on the gargantuan guardsman in front of them.

He did not stir, not even at the cold that whistled in from the outside. He was a stone statue, keeping watch over a fortress already breached by hostile invaders. It seemed he would, however, be there to nab any invader who dared to leave through the entryway.

They were close now; they could feel the cold wind outside the door. Fry crept slowly around the monster's gigantic leg, it being like some icy pillar jutting out of the floor. Leela was still in front of him, looping around to the crack in the door. The only thing to worry about at this point was whether big, tall, and icy could react before they made their way across the bridge.

Fry could see out through the gash in the door. Snow was falling rapidly now, and the light had faded to nothing but a weak glow that still managed to light the landscape in an eerie blue. He could see the ship, a small black dot far off in the distance. How long had they been inside?

Suddenly, there was a crackling sound. It was slow at first, then it grew to a rumbling crescendo. A massive arm of ice smacked down to the floor, sending a spider's web of cracks across it. The monster had awoken, its eyes now bright red lanterns above them. It let out a roar unlike anything Fry had ever heard before, lifting its massive arms above its head for a killing blow.

They ran for it, scraping past the monster and out the door. Fry ran faster than he ever had before in his life, almost on par with Leela as they trampled over the causeway of packed snow. He didn't look back to see if the monster was following him. He didn't want to know in any case.

The wind was roaring, almost like something from deep inside the planet had been unleashed along with these frozen horrors. The question in everyone's mind was simple: what had happened to the miners? What had happened to Ice XI?

The bridge became yesterday's news in an instant, and the ice covered walkway was now nothing but a minor hindrance to three very motivated new track stars. The landing pad was now within reach. Fry was completely winded by the time they had reached the ladder, and he stopped for a few seconds to catch his breath.

"Fry, c'mon!" Leela, being a fast climber, was already near the top.

"I can't… I can't, Leela." Fry wheezed. "Just let me catch my breath…"

"Then enjoy catching your breath with him!" Bender shouted from the top of the ladder; he pointed back down the pathway. Fry turned. He saw one snow monster, large, bulking and very irate, charging up to meet him at incredible speed. Fry leapt up the ladder like a human spider.

The ship was untouched, a single bright spot in this strange turn of events. Leela bolted for the landing hatch; Fry and Bender close behind her. They reached the cockpit just as their assailant began to scale the cliff ahead of them. Two large hands of white were just reaching over the edge of the field, provoking screams from both Fry and Bender. Leela was at the controls already, and the ships engines roared to life at her touch. Dark matter exhaust poured from the back of the craft, melting the permafrost lodged around the base and lifting it off the ground like it was made of feathers and not poly-chromatic steel. The monster's face was now visible, its giant arms grasping for its prey. Leela brought the ship up to waist height with the creature, her right boot hovering just above the accelerator.

"He's gonna get us!" Fry cried. "What do we do?"

"First, we'll try speaking his language." Leela responded calmly, and just as the monster reared for a strike with its gigantic claws she punched down on the gas.

The ship shot forward like a mucus green bullet, charging headlong into the monster's stomach. A massive roar of pain and anger was heard as the cockpit slammed into tons of hard ice and slush. A few seconds more and they burst back into the open, leaving the monster behind them. Fry let out a whoop of triumph as they gained altitude, the tundra below them giving way to the sky.

Suddenly, the ship faltered, snapping back to the dirt as if caught on an invisible tether. Leela called up the rear viewscreen; it was their old friend again. Apparently he could survive all four hundred tons of a Class J delivery vessel being rammed through his colon. His half melted body was still clinging to the rear tailfin, and with his added weight he was dragging them back to the planet's surface. Leela revved the engine, sending chunks of him flying off in all directions.

Fry's face was glued to the window, watching their massive enemy melt off like the water from the space wash. Leela revved again, and the ship gained a foot of altitude. He was still hanging on, watery tendrils streaming from the engines.

And they were sinking, slowly but surely, back down to the ground. Leela slammed her foot down hard on the gas, the ship buckled and twisted in mid-flight. In the rearview mirror, they could still see his evil face and the heavy water that made up his body clinging to the paneling of their craft. The engines were at full capacity, a first for one of Farnsworth's designs. Putting a hand to the side of the ship one felt a huge vibration, along with a dull roar muffled by sonic dampeners and steel walls. It was like some demonic force had crept up the tailpipe and was now raising hell in the engine room. Plus there was an odor; and not a very pleasant one at that.

With a final roar, either from the engines or the monster, the ship broke free. Behind them they could see the landing pad shrink away, now possessing a few more piles of ice than it had originally. The ship sped away again, fast as ever. Fry was silent this time, still afraid that the monster was clinging to the ship. But after a few seconds with no roars or crashing blows, he grew slightly bolder.

"Did we make it?" he asked while cowering underneath his chair.

"We made it!" Leela cried triumphantly. "Just a few more seconds and we'll be in contact range of the _Nimbus_. Now to tell Captain Blowhard…"

And then the whole world shunted sideways.

* * *

Midday at the Planet Express office was, in Amy Wong's blog, the most boring time of the day. The midmorning rush usually lasted until ten, with most of the crowd consisting of people needing packages there today, yesterday, or seven weeks ago. Others were salesmen looking for easy targets, parole officers looking for a certain grey coated robot standing at about six-three, and the occasional hobo looking for a "Dr.-crazy- lobster-guy". The latter she directed to Zoidberg.

She was slumped over the desk, fiddling absentmindedly with her wristlojackimator. For the longest time she had contemplated getting one of the newer models, the ones with the neural focusing receptors that you could graft onto the back of your retina, but Leela had talked her out of it: _Trust me, you're distracted enough as it is, _she had said. It without cruel intent, it being one of those backhanded comments they traded from time to time.

About ready to peter off into her third nap, she closed her eyes. Suddenly, there was a loud buzz. Amy promptly sat up, hitting her head on the drop box located just above her desk. Wincing painfully, she rubbed her scalp as she looked for the source of her annoyance. It turned out it was the call function on her wristband.

She pressed answer. A whooshing noise burst from the tiny speakers, slightly digitized and accompanied by the occasional loud explosion.

"Ni hau." she said cheerfully. "Planet Express offices. May I ask who's calling?"

"Amy! For the love of God, put the Professor on!" It was Leela, she sounded panicked. Amy got up instantly and headed for the Professor's office. It sounded like they were on another adventure, to be sure. As she walked she kept talking:

"No problem, Leela. So what do you need the Professor for?"

"Oh, no reason," Leela replied. She was calmer than before, but only slightly. "I just need to know what to do when the engines fall out of the back of the ship. _Any suggestions?_"

"Nope, sounds like real trouble. Sorry, could you wait a few seconds?" Amy had reached the laboratory, where the Professor concocted his experiments of the mad and semi-mad variety. He was hunched over a test tube, periodically giggling and mumbling to himself. Every so often a small wisp of green and white smoke rose above his bald wrinkled head, setting off the smoke detector which he then silenced without mercy.

"Professor!" Amy called.

The Professor turned slowly, annoyed at the prospect of having to be distracted from an experiment.

"Yes, what is it?" he grumbled. "It's not every day a scientist can break the laws of nature and laugh at the natural order while being distracted by… oh, what do you want?

"It's Leela, I think they had some trouble with the deal." replied Amy, understating a very important conversation yet again. "She sounds really stressed."

"Oh, if that half-witted troglodyte ignoramus relative of mine has screwed up again…" the Professor fumed. "We're still paying of the bill from that gigantic fiasco on Methanasia."

"That was Bender." Amy corrected.

"Oh, whatever! Just give me the phone!"

Amy held out her wrist. The Professor was not amused.

"Yes Amy, that pink nail polish is very nice, but I need the _phone_."

"This is the phone, Professor. It's my wristloja-"

"Alright, spare the semantics! Just hand it over!

He grabbed Amy's wrist and held it to his ear. "Hello? Hello!" he shouted at the top of his voice. The Professor, for all his scientific prowess, still had trouble with modern appliances. Amy still couldn't believe he actually still used a laser HoloDisk player, they were so 2930s! Still, he managed to get Leela off hold by grace of God.

"Professor, is that you!"

"Yes it's me, Leela!" he replied grumpily. "Now what's going on up there? Did Fry eat bad space tacos? Bender pick pocketed one of the ambassadors? Oh, don't tell me, you slept with Brannigan again?"

"No! The ship's engines have detached!"

"That's all? Thank heavens, I assumed it was something important."

"From the ship, Professor!"

"Oh, that's bad. Well, your best bet is to bring her down into a controlled landing."

"Glide her down? We're in the middle of nowhere!"

"Exactly, that'll make it easier!"

The Professor cut the link.

* * *

Leela kept on listening to the tone at the other end of the line. Gliding the ship down was one thing, doing it with no engines or rear tailfins was another. It seemed that Iceixican water did strange things to metal that no one really knew or cared about before, but now it was a tremendous problem.

"Buckle up, gentlemen!" she yelled to Fry and Bender. "It's going to get really hairy in a few minutes!"

"A few minutes? We've got plenty of time!" Bender said boldly. "C'mon, ya stupid slushball, show Bender the Magnificent what you're made of!"

The ship angled into a straight nosedive, tipping the cockpit into full view of the ground below. Fry was already in his seat, holding onto the seatbelt for dear life, Leela was grasping the controls in a futile attempt to indent them with her fingerprints, and Bender had taken a brash pose at the front of the cockpit to show that he was unafraid of a planet like Ice XI. Then again, given its tremendous size, Ice XI probably wasn't afraid of him either.

Leela pulled back on the controls, leveling out slightly. A swath of dark blue sky appeared, cut off abruptly by a vast expanse of white ground. It was like an artist had started painting a picture but was then distracted by his landlord who had threatened to vacate him because he hadn't paid his rent for three weeks, meaning the artist had to escape through the window while his landlord's 'associates' battered down the door. Either way, it swallowed them with its immenseness and lack of economic foresight.

Fry couldn't tell where the ground started, and he sure didn't want to feel it. He braced tightly against the seat. Leela's eye bulged with the fear of having to crash land on a strange planet filled with monsters and one extremely stupid DOOP captain orbiting two hundred miles above their heads. Bender's cigar was lit, and a cloud of smoke encircled his robotic face that was filled with mighty indifference to their situation.

The ground was three hectometers away, then two decameters, then one meter…

BOOM!

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Sorry about another cliffhanger, I couldn't think of any other way to end this.

Thanks for the kind reviews. I'll keep up the good work.

New chapter soon. Review/comment, plz.

-Xoanon


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"What a stupid reason to call. 'The engine's detached from the ship'. I swear that idiot Fry's starting to rub off on her!"

The Professor gave Amy back the use of her arm, turning back to his experiment. Amy rubbed her wrist, for the Professor's bony fingers had left a red imprint on it. She didn't worry much about Leela or the others; they always seemed to get into these kinds of situations. It happened almost every week: Fry getting alien parasites stuck in his system, Leela finding the lost planet of her ancestors, Bender becoming a folk singer, everything interesting at Planet Express seemed to revolve around them. It was incredibly strange, but it was as if everyone expected it all the same.

She began to walk down the hall, still ruminating on her friends. Come to think of it, why did everything interesting happen to them? I mean, she got to ride along a few times, but not for the really dangerous stuff! Here she was, minding the front desk as Farnsworth's secretary, and they were off getting chased by monsters and putting themselves in serious danger. She wanted to be in serious danger too!

Suddenly, she heard the bell ring, it was the front door. She hurried to the front door to find a delivery man standing there in the lobby, holding a package in his hand.

"Hi, can I help you?" she asked, puzzled.

"Yes, I've got an important datafile here for a 'Professor Farnsworth'," he replied. His tone was unusually formal for a deliveryman, sort of like a white collar Fry. "Is he here today?"

"Yes. I'll sign for it." Amy said, taking an electric pen from the desk. "He's in the middle of an important experiment right now."

The deed was done within a few seconds, and the deliveryman was on his way. Amy thought for a moment of delivering the letter to the Professor, but judging by the shouts coming from the lab–along with the dangerous looking green smoke pouring through the doorway-he didn't seem like he would be in any shape to receive it for a while. She decided to wait, placing it carefully on the edge of her desk.

Thirty minutes later, she was carefully peeling off the security seal. After fiddling with her lojackimator for a while, playing a quick game of 'spot the cute guy' on the street beyond the office, taking six calls, and shooing Zoidberg away from the trash bins for the eighth time today, she decided to have a look. The file opened effortlessly, a swirl of yellow-colored dots representing undecoded data appeared on the thin polymorphic screen. A single sentence appeared:

"_Greetings. Insert recipient DNA to unlock message."_

Amy had never been grateful to have to carry the Professor's toenails around before, but now they had finally come in handy. After carefully placing one on the scanner, the message beeped twice.

"_DNA accepted. Decoding message…" _

The yellow strings sorted themselves instantaneously into the message, which read as follows:

_From the Office of the Foreman _

_Royal Production Offices _

_Main Shaft, Ice XI_

_Dear Professor Farnsworth, _

_We regret to inform you that the Royal Family has decided to reverse its original decision to allow your company to supply Ice XI with heating/melting equipment as well as other important mining devices. This decision was not made lightly, and involved several drawn out meetings conducted at great expense to the common taxpayers of our world, and at the end of which it was agreed that we would use a different contractor for our supply needs. We emphasize that this decision in no way reflects on your company's performance or competence in the shipping/deliverance of packages field, and that we will continue to recommend you to other planets that lie within our all-conquering sphere of influence. _

_The matter of your delivery crew will be settled upon their arrival. If they reach Ice XI either before or after you receive this letter, the equipment will be paid for in full. However, we cannot stress enough that it is imperative that they leave immediately afterwards. As you were briefed on in our original communiqué, Ice XI has recently installed a laser guided defense system to protect from space piracy and raiders. It is most unfortunate that we cannot reveal our codes to any foreign entities, public or private, and therefore your crew will only have three hours to vacate our air-space before the public codes reset. Please inform them of this technicality immediately._

_We hope to hear from you again under more fortuitous circumstances. _

_Sincerely, _

_The Forman, __Royal Engineer for Ice XI _

Amy looked past the signature at the bottom, and sure enough there was a space check for the cost of the heating equipment: $250,000 astrobucks, along with their original retainer. Farnsworth wouldn't like this, for weeks he had been shouting that this delivery deal would make Planet Express invincible. Now he'd have to swallow his pride, and he hadn't done any sort of swallowing for thirty years.

She reset the message and slipped it back into the envelope. A thought came to her about the crew: what if their engines couldn't be fixed in time? She waved it away, telling herself that the Iceixicans would surely help them repair it in time for them to leave. Now to get the letter to Farnsworth and get back out before he…

"Hello! Amy!" there came a voice from behind her. It was nasally Yiddish in inflection but somehow alien in tone.

Great, he was back again.

Amy turned around to see a large pink thing standing in the lobby. It wore a doctor's coat around its pudgy frame, and when it spoke the strange threadlike tentacles around its mouth moved in a sickening display of ragdoll physics. It wasn't clean either, and it had smudges of filth all around its face, coat and feet, as if it had been digging in the dumpster recently. Its eyes were roughly the size of golf balls, and were full of the type of naïve wonderment that only certain types of social workers possessed before it was beaten out of them in the real world. It was Dr. John A. Zoidberg, and he looked very hungry.

"Not now, Zoidberg," Amy said. "I need to see the Professor, it's important."

"Oh? Going to see the Professor?" he replied, his interest now piqued. "Be sure to put in a good word for Zoidberg! I could use a small cost of living increase, you know."

"I'll do that." Amy said hastily, moving down the hallway as fast as politeness allowed. Zoidberg was nice enough to tolerate, but every second spent with him doubled the chances of him getting beaten up. To her disdain, Zoidberg moved with her.

"So, tell me the news, how are our friends out on Ice XI?" he said eagerly.

Amy, now slightly exasperated at the crustacean, spoke quickly:

"They've had engine trouble, they've needed to land and repair, and they should be back in a few hours more or less."

She reached Farnsworth's lab in record time. "Excuse me, Zoidberg…"

Zoidberg, not one who could take a hint easily, followed her in. the Professor had completely melted his first test tube, and had moved his strange liquid to a reinforced quantum field containment unit. Even now he was pacing back and forth around it, grumbling menacingly…

"So, you think you can outsmart old Farnsworth, eh?" he yelled, not aware of the two that had just stepped into the room. "Well, you've just made the worst miscalculation of your half-life! I've tangled with science fair experiments more dangerous than you! I'm not your average, namby-pamby, Harvard educated mad scientist! I've come within several steps of an actual woman, dammit! I will get you to behave like a Newtonian liquid, or my name isn't Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth!"

Noticing his underlings for the first time, he rounded on them:

"Yes Amy, what is it?" he said rather calmly.

Amy held out the datafile, and he promptly snatched it up. The two stood silently as he decoded and read it. Amy leaned in slightly watched the subtle signs creeping onto his brow, the thin furrows that appeared when he read the first few sentences would indicate what type of paroxysm her boss would undergo and what tirade he would unleash first.

He read quietly, with little indication that he was actually paying attention to the overall gist of the letter. When he finished, he stood quietly for a moment, and then spoke:

"Amy, what time did the ship leave for Ice XI?'

Amy checked her watch. "Two hours and thirty minutes ago." She said.

Farnsworth promptly regressed into blind rage:

"THOSE IDIOTS! They'll never get off the planet in time; now we'll need to file a damage report with our insurance provider! Zoidberg! Get off your barnacle-encrusted ass and get SpaceCare on the line now!"

"Right away sir!" Zoidberg said cheerfully, scuttling away as fast as possible. He knew that the Professor controlled pay, and that more pay meant happy Zoidberg. Farnsworth was still fuming:

"And then there's the paperwork. Good zombie Christ, the paperwork! I know Hermes practically lives for that crap, but to me it's one big pain in the anal sphincter! If those two semi-moron jackanapes and that robo-beaner get off that planet alive, I'll kill them!"

"Professor..?" Amy said meekly, but it was too late, her boss was on a roll.

"If those Iceixican water wizards think they can get away with this, they haven't met Hubert J. Farnsworth!" He stumbled over to a nearby phone. "I'll call every netpaper in the tri-system area! All the scandal rags and the tabloids! They'll have a field day when I drop the Q-Bomb about their so-called 'Exalted Ice Prince' and his 'questionable sexuality'!"

"Professor..?"

"You're right, Amy! We'll call the DOOP senate! Those trigger happy morons will flip their circuit breakers when they hear about one of their native ships shot down in flames. Isn't Brannigan stationed near that frozen snotball?"

"Er… Yes." Amy said hastily. She still had nightmares from what Leela did to the last person that mentioned Captain Zapp Brannigan. At least that blowhard reminded her of Kif…

"No, no, wait. Perhaps we should go a more subtle route, destroy their water business through bad word of mouth and sabotage. Yes, of course! If they ever get back, those idiots are going to have a little business trip to Atlantic City, beacause I've got some unfinished business to complete with Galactic Shipping Incorporated… What do you think, Amy?"

Amy snapped out of her daydream, which involved Kif's squishy abs, long enough to form a semi-coherent response.

"Uh… Sounds good, Professor?" she said weakly.

The Professor eyed her with suspicion.

"Very well. As soon as Zoidberg gets back with the phone, we'll call Hermes. He's going to be delighted about all that paperwork."

Amy watched the Professor continue to ruminate on how to get back at Ice XI; it would have been great if this deal hadn't fallen through. Planet Express wasn't in any real trouble, but it was nice to know there was money in the bank. She knew that feeling all too well, what with her parents being the proud owners of roughly half of Mars and all.

She had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. Not exactly dread, but some sort of generic dread substitute. Roughly three hours ago, she had said goodbye to her only real friend here at the Express, and now she was most likely stranded on a patch of tundra far from any real city. Amy had always admired Leela's survivalist personality; it was the one quality that was relatively normal about her. And no matter what they said about each other, she had always hoped that they would remain friends.

At that moment, Zoidberg popped his head through the lab door:

"Professor? They told me to stay on hold, is that okay?"

"Shut up, Zoidberg!" the Professor bellowed.

Zoidberg whooped and sped out of the room.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Hope you enjoy Professor Farnsworth. He was really fun to write.

Once again, thanks for the comments. Review me! I HUNGER FOR IT!

-Xoanon


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Turanga Leela understood how an atomic bomb worked, almost every human or humanlike being that lived on Earth did. It was a simple process that was taught to children upon their entry into the second grade. Even Leela, despite her status as an orphan, abandonee and all around weird looking freak, knew about this ingenious device and, when given the right materials, could actually make one in a certain amount of time. The only reason this knowledge was useful at the moment was because it felt like one was going off inside her skull.

She sat up slowly, rubbing her temples. It was dark inside the ship's cabin; they had slammed into something hard. Hard and white. That was all she could remember at the moment, any more thinking would probably cause her to black out again.

Her singular vision cleared, the blurs separating into their more complex shapes. Her eyesight adjusted, and she could now see to a few feet out in front of her. A large white baglike shape, almost like a mushroom cap, was looming in front of her, half deflated and covered in drops of red. She put a hand to her face, checking for any punctures. Only some from her nose and a little from her mouth became apparent in her self-examination.

She got up, shifting slowly to prevent herself from falling to the front of the ship. The entire craft was situated at a negative thirty degree angle, not enough to drastically change things, only enough to cause a spectacular fall if one put their foot the wrong way. Her eye moved around the cockpit, combing for any damage. If Farnsworth saw even one scratch her proverbial goose would be literally cooked. She turned around, and suddenly she had to stifle a gasp.

Fry was dangling from the seat behind her, his limbs flailing aimlessly and his head resting at an unnatural angle on his chest. All anxieties over the ship melted away as she scrambled to check her friends breathing. He was, but only barely. She unhooked him from the seat, silently cursing the bastards that had kicked them out of the sky. A quick physical examination revealed no major injuries, though he did have a slight bruise from the seatbelt across his upper chest. Whiplash would certainly be a factor later, if there was a later for him.

"Fry! Wake up!" she said, shaking him slightly. Nothing happened.

Now she was getting worried. Fry was no superman, but he seemed like he could bounce back from even the biggest injuries. He survived the stinger of a space bee getting rammed through his abdomen, he survived his nose getting cut off by alien poachers, he survived the royal jelly on Wormulon, but he couldn't survive a plain old spaceship crash? Malarkey!

"Wake up! You need to wake up, Fry!" she yelled, slapping his face. That usually did the trick, but not this time. He was unresponsive, like one of those old wireless game controllers. "C'mon! I'm not your mother! I can't keep slapping you all day!" Still he did nothing. Sighing, Leela set him down gently.

Then the full reality of their situation hit her: they were alone, on a frozen wasteland planet, with hundreds or thousands of those Yivo-forbidden things roaming around looking for human or robot meat. Farnsworth didn't know what was going on, and if he did know he probably waved it away and laid back for a six hour nap. They were all alone. No help, no rescue, no incoming cavalry. Just snow, wind, and cold.

Leela was not disheartened, she liked a challenge. First order of business: to get these two sad sacks up to fighting shape. She turned back to Fry.

"Fry, if you can hear me, hum the first few notes of 'I'm Walking on Sunshine'. Okay?"

Fry didn't respond, but Leela listened just the same. Nothing.

"Alright, fine! Just don't expect me to help you not swallow your tongue!" she yelled. Her voice resonated slightly in the cabin. It was getting colder; the heater must have been disabled. She shivered slightly; even her fury was no match for the cold of Ice XI's late afternoons.

Deciding to let Fry alone for a few minutes, she pulled herself up into the captain's chair and powered on the remaining functioning subsystems. It didn't look good, only the headlights had power, everything else was kaput. So they had no power, so what? It would be like every other time they were stranded on a harsh unforgiving planet with no supplies or contact with the outer galaxy. Everything would be fine. Stay positive… stay optimistic…

"Leela?" came a small voice from behind.

With incalculable speed Leela spun around, her hands instantly clamping down on the person's throat. It took her senses a moment to register that the helpless figure she was choking was actually Fry.

"Fry!" she took her hands from him immediately. "You're awake!"

"Yeah, sorry. I was having a great dream. I think it was about giant Twinkies." He looked around the cabin. "what happened to the ship?"

"From the looks of things, I'd say we've burrowed underground." Leela replied, checking the edges of the cockpit window for any source of light, "here's to hoping that we can get out the back end, if there is a back end anymore."

"No kiddin'." Fry said, trying to keep his balance on the slanted floor. "wait a minute, where's Bender?"

Leela hadn't seen their kleptomanical friend since she'd woken up. She looked around the cockpit at the dark shapes, not one of them looking at all like a boozing, smoking, whore-mongering, robotic Lothario. She figured that he must have rebooted after the crash and was now rummaging through the storage bins for a 'salvage run'. She turned to leave, when suddenly; a small cylinder lodged underneath the dashboard caught her eye.

She bent down, and sure enough, it was a metallic torso. Nearby she found one arm, its servos crushed by the odd angle at which it fell, and a head. There was one cigar still caught in its mouth, along with a look of abject 'oh crap this was a very very bad idea' still frozen on its face. It was Bender.

Fry, just now noticing the state of his friend, instantly dropped to his side. "Bender! Speak to me! Call me a meatbag, a rube! Say something!" he cried.

"Don't panic, Fry." Leela said, in her best consoling tone. "All we need to do is reboot him. Not sure about what we'll do with the arm, though."

Fry was still distraught over the apparent loss of his friend, and he slumped down by the dashboard. Leela went to work on Bender's circuitry. She was no robosurgeon, but a patch job would hold for the next thousand miles or so. Holding a single wire up to the dim light, she threaded it back through his central processor. Closing the panel she said a silent, non-denominational prayer and pressed the on button located near his right shoulder.

Nothing happened at first; Bender's speakers only emitted a small hissing sound, then a few louder beeps, and then nothing. Fry's eye held a small tear, which rolled down his cheek and splashed to the cockpit floor. Leela was sad too. Bender, for all his faults, had been loyal and trustworthy. He never sold them out for any denomination under ten grand, nor did he ever fence their cargo at an unfair price when their missions occasionally failed. He was the best alcoholic, chain smoking, Latino robot any delivery crew could ask for.

Leela put a hand on Fry's shoulder, for comforting purposes. Fry took the offer readily. They both stood staring at their fallen comrade.

"Rust in piece, shiny prince…" Fry said quietly.

They had both gotten up, turning their backs on the robotic corpse. Suddenly, a loud piercing shriek split the air around them:

"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE! DI-rect PRO-TO-cals DAAAA-maged, SWIT-ching TO BACK-ups, BAAAAACK-ups!"

They both whirled around to see Bender, alive and semi-functioning, spinning around on the floor. They helped him up slowly, leading him over to the chair by the side of the dashboard.

"Bender! Are you okay?" Fry asked eagerly.

"He looks like he's had a rough time." Leela mused, checking his pupils. "Bender, can you remember us?"

Bender stood still. His head flung itself from side to side, checking them both with the scanning equipment built into it. His movements were disjointed, stalling out at random occasions. These motions were accompanied by strange clicks and random re-utterances. It was like he was drunk, but also sober at the same time.

"DA-TA-FIILE: PHIL-ip-ip FrYYY, age twenty *klik* twenty-se-ven. Likes al-co-hol, cheap wo-men, and craps *kilk* craps! Name your game! Black-jack, PO-ker!"

Fry looked at Leela. "Uh, I think he's gotten some of his files mixed up." he said sheepishly. Changing the subject, he turned to the spazzing manbot in front of him: "Bender, do you remember Leela?"

"DA-TA-FILE: LE-la? LE-la! Bossy! Big boots! Has anger problems!

"What? I do not!" Leela said indignantly.

"Anger problems! Problems! LEELA MAD! LEELA SMASH! Mad mad mad! *klik* mad mad!"

Leela did not mind being called bossy; she considered it being a take charge trait. However, she didn't enjoy being called angry. She gave Bender a slap in the head, half hoping that it would straighten out his circuits. It didn't, and Bender promptly went back to sorting out protocols.

"Great, now what do we do with him?" She grumbled. "At least he would have been easier to carry if he was quiet."

"Leela, how can you say that?" Fry gasped, "He's our friend!"

"Yes, our friend who is half-functioning!" Leela yelled, her voice carrying down the hall behind them. "In case you haven't noticed, Fry, we are stuck on a hostile ice planet with monsters that want to eat us, we have no mode of transportation, and the only one of us that could have a chance fighting those things is now a pile of sputtering junk!"

"FILES… scan-ING! IN-HI-BI-TION cir-cuit DAAAA-MAGED!" Bender called from the dashboard.

"SHUT UP!" she roared; she had never been this mad. Their predicament had finally gotten to her, no matter which way they turned it seemed hopeless. Bender was the one thing she could have even remotely considered counting on, and now he was loopier than he was normally. Fry was useful, at times. But for the most but only when he was focused, and Leela had no time for a delivery boy that couldn't keep up.

Finally, after a long moment in which only Bender's semi-rhythmic spasms could be heard, she calmed down enough to restore her manners:

"Fry… I'm sorry." she said softly. "I shouldn't have gotten mad at you or Bender. I'm not going to lie to you; we're in a huge pile of trouble. I just need you to keep calm and help out as best you can, got it?"

Fry didn't hesitate with the answer: "Got it."

"Good." she said, a smile returning to her face. "Now let's pack up the tin man here. It's time to check out just exactly where we've landed."

* * *

The first time Fry had ever seen snow was when he was three years old. New York back in the present day had a temperate climate, and as such it was susceptible to all the twists and turns Mother Nature could think up for it. So one morning, after being pinched by his brother Yancy for roughly half the night, he looked out off their front porch to see a white wonderland. Their neighborhood was still recognizable, he could still see trees and cars, though these were covered in the white substance that his brother referred to as 'God's…' before his father cut him off. In this way, the young Fry could still tell that his world was still around underneath piles of white fluff.

Fry had no such comfort now. The ship had crash landed in a vast field of snow. Not white powder, as is commonly used for skiing, hard packed snow. The type of snow that beat up regular snow every morning in the clouds above them. The only remembrance of that wonderful stuff that had been was a fine white powder spread over the ground. If Bender had been lucid, he would have most likely made a great effort to compare it to cocaine, but he was still defragging his files in an attempt to sort out his thinking process.

"Bender! C'mon!" Fry yelled as he dragged his friend out of the large hole in the back of the ship. Bender would not, or could not move his legs. Apparently his servos driving mechanism had been damaged in the crash. Making things even worse, he still continued his streaming rants as Fry hauled him from the ship:

"He-LLO! White stuff! White stuff! Looks like CO-caine! CO-caine! Blow! Powder! Dust! 1 kilo for 2.50 a pound!"

Leela had brought along jackets, as well as supplies salvaged from the ship. She didn't know whether or not they would ever see this old flying snotball again. It held a lot of memories, that was for certain.

"Don't worry, Leela." Fry said as he dragged Bender along. "We'll be back. Professor Farnsworth's too cheap to pay for a new ship."

"I know." she said, looking at their former starcraft. For the most part it had done well, despite it being lodged into a hole. There was no damage to the structure to speak of, and the landing gear hadn't snapped to bits when they landed. There was the matter, however, of the engine being completely missing. In every direction parts had been flung, spreading out over the field like some gigantic puzzle. The engine core itself was nowhere to be found, and Leela had a strong reckoning that it had disintegrated. Water from the ice beast still clung to the back of the ship, and there were holes that had been eaten through the metal wherever it had landed. Leela made a mental note to boil their water thoroughly from now on.

"So, where do we go?" Fry asked.

Leela pointed to a range of mountains far off in the distance, just small points of grey jutting up from just beyond the horizon. It was like they were in the mouth of some gigantic monster, and they could see its teeth just rising up to close the mouth and devour them all. Fry shivered, both from the darkness and from the wind that had started to pick up. Leela slung a pack over her shoulder, she tossed one to Fry and he did the same.

"Ready?" she said.

"Yup." he replied.

"Ben-DER is a go! GO GO GO! *klik* GO GO!"

And they set off across the dark, icy plain.

* * *

Professor Farnsworth hated meetings. Every time they gathered around this table he wanted to sock each one of these hardheaded dimwits right in the mouth. But he couldn't do that now. Not for any reason of compassion, but merely because if he hit someone his knuckle bones would most likely disintegrate.

Still, he held his contempt in private, for now. They had a bigger problem: as predicted, Fry, Leela and Bender still hadn't returned from their little excursion to Ice XI. Even worse was the fact that the Royal Family had returned their fee and the cost of the equipment. That couldn't be a good sign; this was the late 3000s, for crap's sake! People didn't just 'return payment' unless they had something else up their sleeves! No, they were planning something, but he just couldn't figure out what.

Anyway, to make matters worse, they had to call a meeting. Hermes apparently needed signatures for those insurance form forms. Farnsworth used a rubber stamp instead, his old fingers too clumsy to hold a pen. Zoidberg hadn't had any luck getting through to their policyholder. The mere mention of the name 'Planet Express' at that place prompted an immediate hang up from the teller on the line. Needless to say, Dr. Zoidberg would no longer be a problem… he had been sent out on a pointless errand. The Professor smiled. _Good luck finding 'Neptunian gargle sprouts' in Manhattan, you stupid lobster._ he thought.

Amy had kept out of the way. Good. He needed time to think.

Now he was seated in his usual hoverchair, and around him were spread the faces of the people he could stand the most in this company: Hermes, Amy, and… who was that third face?

"Scruffy, the janitor." the man replied, as if he knew what Farnsworth was thinking.

"Er, very well. Let's begin." Farnsworth began. He brought up the hologram of Ice XI again, this time it was much bigger and focused on the western half of the planet.

"The last call from Planet Express Ship was received from here…" he attempted to point to the western plains of the planet, but gave up and just rotated it around for everyone to see, "…on the western plains. Now, does anyone have any ideas on where they might be or what to do to them when they get back?"

"Professor, it's been three hours, I don't think they're coming back." Amy said nervously.

"Oh, so you suspect they're trying to run off in my ship, eh?" the Professor said, "Good work, Amy! I knew there was a reason I hired you for other than the blood and organs. Hermes, call up the _Nimbus_! They're stationed on Ice XI! We'll make short work of those turncoats!"

Hermes cleared his throat, obviously understanding Amy's intent better than the Professor did: "Professuh, I tink what Amy meant is dat' dey aren't comin' back _at all_." Amy nodded in agreement.

"Oh, so that's our problem?" the Professor grumbled. "They've crash landed and might be badly hurt? I suppose next you want me to actually look for them!"

"Yes, dat' would be nice." Hermes said. "Plus, add in da' fact dat' dey've got our ship with dem', and you'll be loosing a pretty penny indeed."

The Professor mused for a moment. Losing the ship versus losing those miscreants? It was a tough offer; he could always hire a new crew, but not always a new ship. After he had trashed the last one in that space hive he had scoured the market for months to find a replacement, and it had cost him a pretty penny indeed. He knew he should have been less trusting when he saw the dealer kept his office in a fully fueled escape pod with the boosters running.

Hermes knew how to play to sensibilities; Farnsworth leaned forward again.

"Alright, we'll look for them. Now to more important business: cashing the Iceixicans check."

"Professuh, it's been 'tree hours, if dey're still out there we should start da' search right away. Ice XI gets cold mighty quickly."

He inspected the sector of the planet where the ship had supposedly crashed. "Wait a minute, dat' ice field is only a hundred miles from da' capital! They could be there by now!"

"Fine, then." The Professor replied indifferently. "I'll call up the royals now. If they're not too thickheaded they've probably kept our crew out of the prisons."

"Wouldn't they call us, then?" Amy inquired. The Professor didn't respond, as he was too busy fiddling with the buttons on his spacephone. After a few clumsy mistrials, he managed to dial in the correct number for the Galactic Interchange. A few dials more and he was patched through to the Royal Directorate on Ice XI, the main link between their world and the spacefairing community.

"Hello? Hello!" Farnsworth yelled into the receiver. "This is Professor Hubert Farnsworth of Planet Express, and I want to know if you've seen my idiots! There should be two humans and a robot that steals things, so be sure to keep a close watch on your pockets… Hello?"

No answer, only static. The Professor hung up in disgust.

"Can't even get an answer from those ice licking dimwits, oh well."

"No one home? Not even an' answerin' machine?" Hermes said worriedly.

"I told you: no answer, ice licking dimwits. If anything they've probably stayed in the ship to avoid freezing to death. Day and night on Ice XI are as different as night and day on Earth, except for the subzero temperatures and bone chilling wind. And even_ if_ they've landed near the capital, they've still got no sense of direction. Why, they might even wander farther away from help. Besides that, there's the fact that they've got no food, water, only a few jackets between them and miles of inhospitable arctic desert to cross. Yes sir, they might be in…"

It was here that he stopped. The entire group hung in silence for a little more than several minutes, everything that Farnsworth had said pounding into their brains. This wasn't like the other times, not at all, and things wouldn't wrap up so easily like they always did.

Amy broke the silence. "…In trouble, Professor?" she finished worriedly.

Farnsworth opened his mouth for another snarky response, but there wasn't one. She had stated the obvious. Fry, Leela, and Bender were in serious danger. Not the usual danger, not the quirky, easily resolvable type of danger. Actual real danger, and that was the worst possible kind. For a microsecond of time he actually felt a twinge of worry, something he hadn't felt for thirty years now. The Planet Express crew was a band of dolts. They were obnoxious, lazy, bossy, screwy and always ready to destroy everything either by accident or on purpose. But at the end of the day they had gotten in a few successful packages and dropped a few dollars into Planet Express's back account. That was why they came to this dump every day. They were loyal, there was no doubt about that.

"…Perhaps. Perhaps not." was all he could coax out. "Now, tomorrow I'll get this check to the Big Apple Bank, and we'll find our missing miscreants. Meeting adjourned."

They all rose to leave when Zoidberg came in through the door.

"I found some gargle sprouts! They came from this little vegetable stand on 43rd Street! And the man there was so nice, 'be sure to boil these well, or your organs will rot out your mouth hole', he said."

Farnsworth's first instincts were to slap the creature and send him on his way, but a part of him resisted it.

"Thank you, Dr. Zoidberg." he said instead, taking the vegetables and walking down the hallway to the break room. The others gave him no dirty looks as they filed out silently, not even Hermes.

Zoidberg stood watching them go, he was very confused.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Bender's dialogue in this chapter was sort of a challenge for me. I wanted to show that he was damaged, but not make it overly annoying to read. I decided to go with the sputtering/overpronouncing syllables thing, hope it's okay.

Anyway, things are heating up! Look for a new chapter in a few weeks, I'm taking time off for Thanksgiving.

Review, plz. :]

-Xoanon


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

It was cold. A bitter freezing cold. The kind of cold that was just below unbearable, but so cold that it made the matter itself irrelevant. The late afternoon had descended into dusk, and the clear air had become thick with white flakes that were invisible in the darkness. Ice crunched like broken bones underneath their feet, and the bracing wind that swept across them sapped them of all the energy they hadn't yet used on walking. The plain had stretched ahead for innumerable hours, like some horrid frozen treadmill they were being forced to walk on by some unseen and godlike exercise coach. Their strength was fading fast, with every step and every inch they gained.

And the entire experience would have been slightly more bearable, if not for Bender's singing.

"OHHHHHHH THE SUN SHIIINES BRIGHT ON MY OLD KEN-TUCKY HOOOOME…!"

And on it went for hours. Apparently they should have listened when Bender said his inhibition circuit was damaged, as it caused him to express his desire to be a folk singer in the loudest and most obnoxious manner possible. Leela, in desperation no doubt, had attempted to fix him twice now, but her hands were too numb from the cold. So all they could do was walk on while their robotic friend blared out the oldest country hits he knew, with Fry walking alongside him guiding him in the right direction. Even with his jacket zipped up he could still feel the wind's bite, and he still had to hold the front of it with one hand to keep it from blowing snow down the back of his neck.

Leela walked in front of him, her stride purposeful despite the fact that they had absolutely no idea where they were going. Even when their ship had crash landed in the middle of this vast ice field leading to a wonderful romp through mile after mile of white landscape, even when they had no maps or supplies other than a piddling little emergency pack, even when they had no plan of action for dealing with the hundreds of ice monsters roaming about ready to cut them to ribbons, she still kept going. Other people would call this kind of endurance "stupidity". Turanga Leela called it "facing the odds".

The snow had slowed their progress some, of course, making each step a battle that the clumsy Fry and delirious Bender occasionally lost. But they still kept going, for one reason only: to solve the mystery that they had gotten themselves into. A normal, everyday resource planet like Ice XI was no place to harbor giant, eight foot tall monstrosities like the ones they had seen. Things like that didn't just show up out of the woodwork. So because they were here, it couldn't hurt to snoop around for a few clues. It would be like those old Scooby Doo episodes, but with more flesh rending hellspawn and less crooks in cheesy rubber suits.

Another step, more snow underneath her boots. Leela had dealt with strange things before, with Planet Express it was a job requirement. She'd been forced to work on gigantic monuments on Osiris IX, she'd fought off water based Trisolians thanks to Fry's ingesting of their emperor, and, to her great shame, she'd almost gotten married. Now she was stuck here, on Ice XI, tromping through snow and ice. It was not really the way she wanted to spend her day. Now she had only one purpose: find the people responsible for their excursion and beat the snot out of them.

As with most snowstorms the view around them had been reduced down to a mere couple inches. They had to find shelter quickly, or barring that dig down into the ice, anything to get away from the biting cold. Suddenly, there was a loud groan, followed by the creaking of metallic joints. Leela whirled around to see Fry tugging at the arm of his robotic friend.

"C'mon, Bender! You need to keep moving!" he said. "If you stay out here, you'll freeze!"

Leela hesitated to assist him. If Bender was freezing up, there was really nothing they could do for him. The survival kit, unsurprisingly, had not accounted for a robot crewman, and even then common antifreeze wouldn't do him any good in Ice XI's atmosphere. Logic dictated that Bender needed to be left behind.

"Fry…" she began, but Fry could tell what she was about to say:

"We're not leaving him, Leela!" he shouted, his voice rising over the storm. "He's our friend! Disabled or not, we need his help!"

"Fry, listen to reason!" Leela shouted back. "He's a robot, he can be repaired! We are humans, we're soft and pliable! We can't be left out overnight! Now come on!"

Fry's stance was firm. "I'm not leaving." he said flatly.

"Fine!" Leela turned and walked off. "Just remember what I said when your toes start freezing off!"

And with that she let the two of them vanish behind her in the storm. As she trudged on through the blackness her temper merely raged hotter. She was furious with Fry. It was amazing how he could just simply turn his brain off to reason, even in the simplest situation. When every possible clue pointed to Answer A, he chose Answer B. When everyone else saw black, he saw white. And logic? It might as well have been Betacrypt to him. Philip J. Fry always thought with his heart, and not enough with his head. You needed to think with your head on a planet like Ice XI or you'd freeze to death…

She stopped, not even thinking about turning around. Pangs of guilt shot through her stomach, making her feel slightly warmer despite the raging storm around her. What had she just done? Abandoning a crewmember and friend on the surface of a frozen ice ball was not a valuable captaining skill, and only now that the snowstorm had filled in her tracks and she'd lost sight of him did she remember that important fact.

She turned around and started running in the opposite direction. Hopefully Fry wasn't trying to snack on his own limbs just yet. Why had she abandoned him over some stupid fight? He couldn't freeze out here, he just couldn't.

Suddenly, she tripped over an unseen drift and toppled into a crater in the ground. She got up, covered in loose snow and ice, most of it melting as it touched her skin into freezing water that stung horribly. Climbing out, she saw that it was less of a crater. Instead, it looked more like a jumble of blockish shapes that resembled the stump of a tree. And when she looked around she saw that they were in pairs, leading away into the storm. Judging by their relative depth and rough edges, Leela judged that they were fresh, and it was no contest to determine exactly what had gouged them out.

It got worse. The path of the large prints seemed to be going in the exact same direction she was going, back towards Fry. She scrambled to her feet, following the trail of broken snow. Given the luck of her two compatriots the monster would probably run right into them, or more likely, through them. She couldn't stop this thing, but at least she could put up more of a fight and last longer then ten milliseconds. The snowdrifts had gotten bigger, as if nature had decided to sneak up and bury her by surprise.

Leela pumped her legs, vaulting over larger and larger drifts. The storm hadn't intensified, but it felt more violent than ever. Every snowflake felt like a tiny white dagger when it fell against her skin, and every step dragged her down farther into the slush. Her eye searched for any flash of color, a red tatter or a grey patch lodged in a snowbank. Her ears were primed for a roar in between that of a Zetatauran Wild Instigator and a jet engine.

And then, as if on a whim, she heard it. It came out of nowhere, like it had sprung from the ground itself; and once it was loosed it cut through the air like some type of cacophony knife. It was close, no doubt about that, coming from the southwest or what Leela assumed was the southwest due to the storm around her. She ran blindly in that direction, hoping that whatever that monster was screaming at was either Fry or Bender. Suddenly, she collided with a stationary object. A stationary object which latched on and didn't let go.

Leela fought with all her might, kicking furiously and thrashing around in the grip of her unknown assailant. His strength was amazing, almost superhuman, though his fighting style left much to be desired. First she tried her standard Arcturian Kung Fu, slamming him backwards into the ground. He still hung on, so she pushed both her elbows into her opponent's chest and wrenched both his arms off her stomach. They spun apart, the two of them lying on the ground and breathing heavily for the next several minutes. Finally after regaining enough oxygen, she leapt up and pinned a heavy boot across the stranger's throat.

"Bad weather for a stroll, eh?" she growled, still retaining a sense of humor despite her situation. The stranger didn't respond, he merely choked out a few random syllables along with his strained attempts at breathing.

"Don't worry, I'll let you go," she leaned in slowly, for added effect, "just give me a few minutes to enjoy myself."

The figure was now struggling to free himself, his arms waving and grasping madly at the bottom of Leela's boot. Obviously he had no idea that he would need roughly the equivalent of a car jack to free himself from underneath Leela's calf muscle.

"Now, let's get down to business." Leela said, her tone as icy as the snow the man was lying on. "Who are you, and why are you here?"

She eased pressure off the man's larynx, just enough so that he could speak. A single sentence wheezed out from his throat:

"I'm Philip Fry, you left me here."

* * *

It had been one of the most embarrassing moments of Leela's life. After helping up her beleaguered friend, they both headed off to search for Bender. It seemed that he had more on his mind than just standing in the middle of an ice field waiting to be shipped off to the scrap heap. Fry had tried to chase after him, but like Leela he'd gotten lost. That's when he started hearing the monster calls. Leela decided it would be best to follow them, despite Fry's numerous objections. Bender would most likely be trying to find something recognizable in the storm, and unfortunately for them a seven foot tall ice monster in this case would constitute recognizable.

The prints had already begun to fade underneath new snowfall, and Leela didn't know how much farther they could go following this trail. She didn't even know if Bender was heading in the same direction they were. For all she knew, he could have shut down already in the immense cold. Even worse was the problem of frostbite. The exposed skin on their faces and wrists had been feeling numb for hours now, and every time Leela looked down she could see that her skin was starting to jaundice. Fry also complained of a burning sensation in his fingers. That wasn't a good sign.

Shelter on Ice XI is limited to the glacial mountains crisscrossing the planet, and there are no major cities located in the vast open spaces between them. Such a feat of engineering would have to account for frequent snowstorms as well as the cold, the frequent icequakes that shook Ice XI's single tectonic plate, and the sheer logistical nightmare of transporting food, water, clothing, and other trivialities needed to support civilized life into a wilderness not fit for supporting more than at least one to two people. Wisely, the Iceixicans decided that their civilization was best kept in tunnels and mine shafts.

It was this decision that had doomed Fry and Leela to certain death, as they waded on through hundreds of identical snow piles. Leela's eye had been hurting for a few hours now, a side effect of staring at a white canvas for several hours. Fry was also beginning to feel dizzy, and every couple of feet he stumbled like he was tripping over a footstool that wasn't there. Ice XI was taking them apart, bit by bit. They might have had a better chance staying with the ship, but not by much, as at that moment the ship had become the new home of a family of several Iceixican Snow Crabs.

Finally, the two collapsed. Fry first, then Leela a few seconds later. The two of them shivered violently at the cold. It couldn't end like this, it couldn't. But there was nowhere left for them to go, and it appeared that they had finally run out of luck.

Leela's consciousness was fading rapidly; most of her senses already reduced to a fraction of their original capacity. In her field of vision she could see nothing but a gigantic blanket of white marked at the top with a small sliver of darkness that Leela's rapidly fading senses failed to remember as the sky. In those last few seconds before blackout her mind was still firing at triple capacity, still trying to find a way out. There wasn't. She tried to move her legs, her arms, anything, but her body wouldn't respond. All she could do was watch helplessly as reality slipped away.

And then she heard a stream of sound, very faint but noticeable even with her hearing on the edge of unintelligible static. It was familiar, an annoyance in most circumstances, but at the moment it was the most welcome sound in the world. It was jittery, raspy, and it sounded like it was being played through ancient 20th century speakers, but it was still there. With great effort, Leela lifted her head. The sound grew in intensity, but only slightly as it was masked by the wind. She could make out individual words, which were now haphazardly coupled together with breaks and pauses:

"_Noooooooooobody knows *kilk*_ _how dryyyy I am! Howw dryyy I am *klik* Dryyy I am!" _

Leela got up, fighting the cold and the wind. She dragged her way over to Fry, shaking him violently.

"Fry, wake up! It's Bender!" she cried.

"Wuzzat…? Aw c'mon mom, just five more minutes..." Fry groaned in response.

"Wake up!" she slapped him hard. Fry catapulted himself from whatever dream he was experiencing. He blinked stupidly, his body already accustomed to the frozen death he had almost experienced. Leela helped him up, and his legs wobbled underneath him as he took a few steps toward Bender's drunken caterwauling.

"Bender?" he asked sleepily. "Izzat you?"

Sure enough, it was. Out of the blackness came a small cylinder, with the arms and legs attached to it gesticulating wildly for no particular reason at all. Circling his mouth was a ring of some orange foam like substance that the two recognized as his rust beard. He was running out of alcohol. In the civilized universe, robots consumed mostly alcohol with great gusto. This wasn't any personal choice; it was a matter of survival, and upon running out their intakes rusted over with loose particles and leftover alcohol in an attempt to recharge.

Bender continued the rest of his badly butchered ballad, and then stood for several instances without speaking or moving. He then realized that he wasn't alone.

"FRY! LEE-LA! Friends! GOOD friends! Good FRI-day!"

"Bender! Where have you been?" Fry asked. Bender only responded with a belch.

"Not that I enjoy breaking up this reunion, gentlemen," Leela said, her commanding attitude reformulating itself, "but we need to find shelter."

Fry and Bender both looked around. The terrain was still flat and freezing cold.

"Okay then, maybe we can dig down into the crust. Bender, do you think you can use your jackhammer attachment like you used on that door?"

"BEN-DER MAKES GOOD DRILL!" Bender shouted eagerly.

"I'll take that as a yes." Leela responded, and within a minute Bender had managed to regain enough dexterity to use his jackhammer again. The first few hammerings left pockmarks over a wide area, the second few were made with both Fry and Leela holding him steady, and a few more left a small crater in the ice much like the prints that Leela had found ages ago. It would be enough until morning.

The three were about to huddle down, with their shoulders just barely reaching over the edge of their foxhole. Bender, being a robot, had no need for warmth, only prostitutes and alcohol. Fry and Leela huddled together for all they were worth. It wasn't as bad as being left out in the cold, but it was still cold nonetheless. Already snow had started to form at their backs, with small drifts making their way into the center. They didn't want to fall asleep, not now, or there would be a good chance that they wouldn't wake up again when morning came.

Little by little, though, they began to nod off. How they did it was a mystery, going to sleep in a snowstorm was like going to sleep in a blender making a smoothie, only with less fruity deliciousness and more pummeling shards of half-frozen ice. They managed to do it in less than twenty minutes. Bender didn't sleep, not at first, but eventually he managed to power down like a stricken computer that crashes under the weight of too much stored pornography. Around them, lost in the dark, was snow and snow by product. The storm had reached its intensity, by morning it would be over and done with.

The only problem with that would be if the three compatriots didn't survive the night.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **I've decided to go over some parts of the story again, just to fix some errors I've caught. If you see any, let me know. _[Remodeling has begun! 9/25/2010]_

I don't know exactly when I'll be finished with this story. Probably late March. I'd call this chapter somewhere near the midpoint.

Hope for another update mid-December. As always, review me!

-Xoanon


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Big Apple Bank had been a staple of New New York's financial district for nigh on a millennium. Founded in the old days known only in legend and stuffy textbooks, the company had grown over the years to accommodate over two hundred banks in the metro area alone, with thirty other firms scattered across the upstate and Long Island. Their bronzed, vaguely modernist headquarters, as a traditional rule, had always been situated on Wall Street. The environment on that hallowed mile was a long tapped source of inspiration for bankers and traders who had an advantageous knack for dealing in greenbacks and Nixon dollars.

Unfortunately, the current proprietors of Big Apple Bank did not have any sort of knack for dealing with a very angry one-hundred-and-sixty eight year old scientist clad in pajamas holding a dishonored check.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'THE CHECK'S NO DAMN GOOD?'" Professor Farnsworth yelled, his screeching violin of a voice taking up half the vast lobby of the building. "I came down here at the crack of dawn to cash this thing, and you have the gallstones to tell me that it bounced! Who's running this sideshow anyway!"

The manager of the bank, silently lamenting the fact that the Professor had chosen to crash his theater of operations, spoke clearly and with a received tone of meekness:

"Sir, please." he began slowly. The elderly, despite their physical condition, were considered by those in the commercial world to be a force of nature. Even now the proprietor could remember the regaling of his fellow employees in the days when he worked at an Applebee's on Staten Island. Early bird specials were a living nightmare to say the least. "We don't want any trouble here. If you would just calm down, I would be happy to help you solve this situation with all great speed."

Farnsworth didn't even consider the offer. "I'll calm down when I'm dead!" he roared. "Now if you could 'with all great speed' get your head out of your ass and cash my check, I'll leave here without stealing any of your pens!"

This one was wily, to say the least. The proprietor mused over these rambling for several moments, at the same time trying to come up with a response to his demand. Cashing the check was an economical impossibility. The account serial number existed in the system, it was one of the higher accounts, but the check itself was unreadable by any normal standards. Mr. Farnsworth had arrived here at opening time with some sort of electronic pad. For an upstanding institution of finance like Big Apple Bank, this wasn't usually a problem.

There was a problem, however, with actually getting any machine to read the device. Inside the pad there had been a small clear card, which the teller assumed to be the electrocheck. However, every time they sent it through the machine, it began to melt and splatter out onto the floor. After several panics, and hurried conversations about who would bear the brunt of Farnsworth's wrath, they had gathered up the check and told him that they would have to direct him to another department. Farnsworth would have none of it.

So now they had a dilemma: lose the business of an elderly old patron, who would most likely voice his displeasure in the most vocal manner possible to every newsfeed in New New York, or they could continue to waste time attempting to read an unreadable check. The proprietor chose the latter option.

"Sir, where did you say you receive this check from?" he asked.

"I've already told you, I got this thing from the Royal Family of Ice XI." Farnsworth grumbled. "Didn't one of your idiot desk jockeys tell you already, or does news travel slow as quantum molasses in this joint?"

The proprietor's calm face betrayed his emotion. The Royals of Ice XI? What splendid news! Every banker in the western galaxy would kill their first love to do business with those mysterious impresarios, most of all the board of Big Apple. His mind became entranced with those visions of grandeur that strike consecutively with good fortune, and the things that they meant for him if he could pull this off. He'd cash the old coot's check, and then he'd cash in on a much bigger reward, namely a much bigger salary and office.

"Ah, yes. Sir, if you will forgive me, but I do believe that we have a machinist suited to your private needs. Excuse me." And with that he left with all the grace of a robot butler. Farnsworth was left to the mercy of the other bankers. Or to put it more accurately, they were left to his mercy. The proprietor walked through the double doors leading into the backroom, turning around a corner and heading past the row of tellers that dealt with the rabble that passed into these hallowed walls. Beyond that, there was a flight of stairs leading to the second floor offices which held accountants and other dealers, clacking away on digital adding machines and selling unwanted accounts to unwanted clients.

Halfway beyond that, up another flight of stairs and to the right was a single office. It was the domain of space dragons.

Pushing through the open door, the proprietor was met with the acrid fumes of acetone and several other noxious chemicals. Puffs of smoke floated around unchained, and the few desks and chairs there were in the room were piled with calculations and machinery that had been decommissioned by the company long ago. Wrinkling his nose, the proprietor stepped in further, making care not to touch the stains on the walls that looked vaguely like ink and marmalade jam. He never came in here often, and the few times that he had to were usually delegated down to an assistant. He didn't like the fact that he had to dedicate an entire wing of his business to some ungodly mad lab, but the board of directors needed to place their basket case somewhere, and what the board said went.

The room had no light, even though it originally had a half wall of glass windowpanes. Thick blankets had been hung up to block out any light from the outside world, _"It interferes with my_ _work" _he'd said. No one objected. They didn't really mind being crammed into one of the other five floors that Big Apple owned in this building. It wasn't wise to cross someone with the disposition of a Gellaxian Marsh Defiler, let alone talk to him or let him sit with friends of yours at lunch.

Even in the darkness, the proprietor could see small flashes over in the corner. Every flash was a different color, blue and silver and red and tangerine and many others in many combinations of alternating patterns. Each flash lit a face scarred by many self-experimentations and poorly thought through safety procedures. It didn't help that the face was less than human, and instead was more of a rounded thing with protrusions that looked like caricature of human features. Once each flash had passed, there was a small grumble followed by mumbling and harrumphing noises that the proprietor had always assumed was a verbal tic.

He stopped just short of where he expected there was a large table. The flashes were in front of him now, and he could see that face. A shudder of revulsion went up in his throat, but he tempered it back down. He always got this, every time he had to see his so-called friend in the experimentation department of Big Apple. He spoke only one sentence, clearly and concisely, and braced himself for a mighty shock.

"Good morning, Kratus. I assume you're not too busy?"

The flashes ceased, and an instant later a lamp that was standing on the table clicked on. The face was now in full view, and it was not a pretty sight. The rounded face thrust out from the creature's neck like a Frisbee, and its yellow coloration and craterlike scars was made even more vibrant by the light of the bare bulb. The facial features were no better. The eyes were large, and contained two irises instead of the usual one. They also had a glassy texture to them, as if the owner had had them sealed in clear cellophane paper to keep them fresh. The nose was hooked, to say the least of it, and the ears were nothing more than holes surrounded by arc shapes. All in all the creature looked like a child's drawing of a face on a pie tin. Only it wasn't some toy made up in kindergarten class, it was real.

That made it all the more unsettling when he opened his curved mouth and began to speak:

"What do you mean 'not too busy'? You always know I'm busy!" The voice was gruff, grating, sounding like the voice of a Tolkenian dwarf and not some strange pie tin faced man.

"I only need help with a client, nothing more." The proprietor replied. His tone was civil and lacking any strain. If he lost this he could kiss that corner office goodbye. "When I'm finished you can go back to melting down old debit cards and playing darts with the company's pens."

Kratus was not amused. He enjoyed his work dearly, most of it having a specific spiritual quantity known only to him. In Kratus' culture, a man's profession was the entirety of his life. Insulting a man's job was grounds for public execution, as was not giving the best of your ability to your employer. As such, his people were very hot job market items. Most members of his race were hired almost immediately after college, usually in one of the Fortune 50,000 corporations spread across the entire universe.

Big Apple was indeed lucky to have even one of their castoffs, even if all he did was mess around with company property. Besides being a natural mechanical savant, Kratus had majored in Economics as well as Finance Recognition and Extrapolation in one of the many colleges on his homeworld of Selenium V, and had graduated within a single decimal point of being top of his class. If you gave him any coinage from any planet in the DOOP or beyond he could tell you what denomination it was and exactly how much it was currently worth and what it would be worth in a few weeks.

Everyone who saw the trick was amazed, and rightly so considering that he never worked with traders or anyone who actually knew about the workings of the stock exchange. It was as if he had a natural knack for prediction just because he felt the money he was working with. Big Apple was overjoyed when they were informed of this savant, mostly because they could now predict the markets and stay on top of the usual fluctuations that came with managing the money of over fifty thousand New New Yorkers, but also because it gave them a feeling of being drunk on financial power.

The proprietor spoke again: "I apologize, Kratus. I know you provide us with an excellent service informing the top brass of currency fluctuations and such, but pray tell me, do you know anything about the currency of Ice XI?"

"Ice XI?" Kratus repeated the much uttered adage. "That place with the frozen water barons? They control half the galaxy's water. Why's the top brass trying to do business with them?"

"They're not," the proprietor replied. "But one of our patrons is. He brought in this electrocheck this morning, but none of our machines can read it. Can you?"

He held out the check format. Kratus snatched it up instantly, looking over its surfaces with great interest. The chip was small, palm sized, and it was completely clear except for hundreds of small yellow dots embedded in its surface. These dots were what coded themselves into the message Amy had seen as well as the check itself.

"Can you decode it?" the proprietor asked hastily.

"Yeah, yeah, I can decode it." Kratus replied bluntly, sliding it across the surface of his desk. To his surprise it kept moving like a bar of soap, bounding off the wall and sliding back to its original position under his rounded pencil like fingers. "Just give me a minute…"

Seven minutes went by as Kratus inspected the inner workings of his new plaything. It seemed that the check worked by having the correct alignment of dots in the correct places on the card. Once those were in order, poof, the check would reveal itself. Unfortunately, it also seemed that the check was made of some type of hardened water, and that it needed a large amount of heat to start becoming pliable enough to mess with. Those reader machines downstairs would do the trick, but Kratus didn't want to leave his office, it was way too bright out there. An old lamp would work just fine.

After holding the bulb to the surface for a few more minutes, the glassy surface began to moisten and then pool in places. From there he was able to poke around with one of the many tweezers littering his workspace and move the dots into the right places. After shoving it back into the reader, he powered up the unit to observe his handiwork. The proprietor leaned in as close as he possibly could, avoiding the large fluorescent face to his right. The reader was silent for an instant, then snow appeared on the screen. That was followed by a band test. After that, a small rectangle appeared on a white background. The rectangle was the standard size of a check, filled in with writing in some alien language like a check, and signed at the bottom like a check. Kratus didn't know Iceixican, but he was damn sure that it was legitimate.

"There you go, just copy that off the screen and you'll get your money." he slid the reader over to the proprietor. "Who gave you that check? Businessman?"

"Some old coot," the proprietor replied, dropping formality when referring to Farnsworth. "He said he's been dealing with them for a few weeks now."

"Lucky for him that he's not gotten screwed over yet." Kratus said, taking a pen from the desk and absentmindedly tapping it against the table. "Iceixicans aren't known for holding up a bargain for long. I'd be surprised if this wasn't a settlement check."

"Have you dealt with Iceixicans before?" the proprietor asked, wary of asking about Kratus' past outside the firm. Kratus was surprisingly happy to respond.

"A few, mostly investors looking for new recruits. Have you ever seen any of them people? They're small, round eyed, pale, really weird looking. Don't ever want to be thin-skinned around those people, no sir."

The proprietor could only silently agree. After some more small talk, including a frank discussion about office politics and the weather, the proprietor excused himself to the reader room, leaving Kratus to turn back to his explosions.

* * *

_WARNING: Track monitory system damaged. Initiating contact with rail depots: _

_Depot A-1020, contacting… no response._

_Depot A-4020, contacting… no response._

_Depot A-1230, contacting…no response. _

_

* * *

_

This was odd, thought the proprietor.

No. This was more than odd, this was unfair. Every time he typed in the account information, on any station in the office, nothing came up. He was sure, damn sure even, that the Iceixican accounts were in the priority A section of the bank servers, perhaps if he tried AA…

All the while his mind raced on how he would tell Farnsworth that his check was uncashible. He wouldn't be happy, and neither would his own superiors. Apparently, they had already known the Ice XI account was dead or else they would have torn apart everyone else's computers looking for them, but why let such an important account go? Ice XI wasn't known for their economic expansionism, and they rarely approached any outside firms when they had to branch out, so why only now did they suddenly seem to have disappeared into thin air?

A search had turned up nothing, only junk data and useless memos. Wait… what was that one? It said "Important: Read Immediately". He assumed it was important, so he clicked on it. Instantly a large and threatening looking business document filled his screen. Written on it in large black bolded letters was this notice:

_Internal Memo: To all upper-level employees of Big Apple Banks _

_From: Central Management_

_Re: Dissolution of Account No. 1-7649AOK _

_To Whom It May Concern:_

_This is a notice to all employees that the aforementioned account, number 1-7649AOK, has been dissolved as of September of 3009. The owners of the account have decided to move in a different direction in accordance with their banking needs, and have decided to take their assets elsewhere. We at Big Apple Banks are saddened by this loss, but nevertheless their decision in this matter must be respected. Effective immediately, all employees with access cards relating to the account must immediately rescind them to upper management. Failure to do so will result in termination of employment. All other company items pertinent to the account in question will be redirected into Account No. 1-1990ASH, we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. _

_Sincerely, Central Management _

And that was it. The entire account had been wiped lock stock and barrel from the system, gobbled up by some other multiplanetary corporation. He brought up the related links; there was a direct one to the account mentioned in the letter. He brought that up, and stared grimly at what he saw. Professor Farnsworth wouldn't like this. No sir, not one bit.

* * *

_Depot M-4447, contacting… no response. _

_Depot M-5483, contacting… no response. _

_Depot N-1212, contacting… no response. _

_

* * *

_

There was a large black shape. It did not stop. It kept on going through the night. It would never stop until it got where it needed to go.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Still more cliffhanger goodness, with cryptic messages thrown in for good measure.

Expect another update in a few more weeks.

-Xoanon


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

_Depot-W 7760, contacting… no response. _

_Depot-X 3310, contacting… no response. _

_Secondary protocol activated. Commencing emergency shutdown… _

_

* * *

_

There was nothing. No light, no sound, just darkness.

Fry didn't know where he was anymore; he couldn't remember even vague details of what had transpired a few hours ago. All he knew was this darkness around him. He tried to form something, anything coherent from his mouth. Nothing happened. He tried to reach out to something, but his arms didn't work. It was like his entire consciousness had been trapped in amber, and that the ball of amber was trapped in the middle of some giant echoing chamber that existed all around him just out of reach.

His mind tried to piece together where he was. He knew it had been cold, that much had burned itself into his mind; but it seemed that everything after that had been drained away. He thought about Bender, and he remembered his friend's serious malfunction. He thought about Leela. His unconscious mind felt a chill, something seeping in from the real world perhaps.

It didn't stop just then, it just kept on getting colder. Tiny little fragments of sound came with it, rushing wind and blasts of cold air. He was slowly being dragged back to reality, one little piece at a time. The noise grew in intensity, and he could hear something coming, something very big and threatening. He didn't open his eyes, not just yet. The noise grew louder, now accompanied by some strange grinding sound. The grinding then grew to a screech that was deafening. Fry couldn't open his eyes; he was still stuck in the amber. Just five more minutes, Mom. Please…

The screeching grew in pitch, louder and louder until it pounded at Fry's eardrums. It got closer, feeling like it was somehow rearing to pounce on top of him and tear him to shreds. It was the monster in the closet, hiding in with the clothes waiting for him to turn out the light and go to sleep. Then it would creep out, ooze along the floorboards and slither up the bedclothes, unhinge its scaly jaw…

Fry opened his eyes. The noise had ceased, and the only thing he could hear now was the gentle whoosh of the wind just above his head. It was still dark, but he could make out the pit he was crouching in. He could make out Bender, a grey cylinder sitting across from him. His view panel hadn't retracted completely, so Fry's gaze was being met by two glasslike eyeballs peeking out from underneath it. The result it made was unsettling. Suddenly, he realized there was something resting on his shoulder. He twisted around, it was Leela.

She looked pale, almost a light blue when compared with the snow around her. Every few seconds she would shiver, but only slightly. Her breathing was shallow too, with large pauses in between each breath. Fry held his friend closer, hoping she wouldn't wake up to see him in what looked like an attempt to grope her. The cold had become unbearable; every inch of his body was numb. He looked up, seeing nothing but grey sky above him.

He twisted around looking for the source of the mysterious noise. Figuring that it came from of the ice monsters he quickly decided against raising his head up out of the pit for a look around. After a few minutes, with no screeching penetrating his eardrums, he began wondering if he had only imagined it. He _was_ feeling drowsy, so it wasn't that far of a stretch. Heck, he wasn't even sure if he was awake now. Everything he'd felt since he'd woken up was like a dream, even the ground looked surreal. Not to mention that big cloud of steam drifting over the hole…

Wait. Cloud of steam?

Fry bolted up from the ground, his joints aching with each movement. The cloud was real, all right. It was wafting around their half-buried enclave, and it was coming from a very large and imposing black oval that had conveniently parked next to them. Carefully, he swung a leg over the rim and hauled himself up. It took ages but eventually he made his way out. His legs felt as if were half frozen, and they were mostly numb around the back. He rubbed them for a short while until the feeling returned; then set out for the mystery shape in the distance.

It was a monolith, bent out of shape and jutting out of the snow like a black hill worn away by wind and rain. Behind it there was a smaller train of eggs jutting as far as one could see into the tundra beyond. The craft appeared as though it had broken down; nothing was moving inside the small bubble like windows that grew out of the engine's forward half. All in all, the strange object looked somewhat like an ordinary train.

Fry took another cautious step forward. He inspected the sides of the craft, looking for any sort of hatch that would gain him entry into the belly of the beast. There didn't appear to be one; the entire conductor's car was rounded off into an oval shape. There were no lights, whistles, smokestacks, or anything that would identify this strange object as a train, but somehow it appeared like it would still run like a train.

It was here that Fry looked down, spotting a large crevasse separating him from the side of this great machine. The not-train was sunken into the ground at least a foot, resting on some strange underground rails like an egg resting on the twines of a fork. Fry felt a warm updraft rising from the trench. It was very relaxing and a welcome change of pace from the crushing, bitter cold he felt elsewhere. The rails themselves were lustrous silver, and they gave off faint wisps of steam, almost like they would be hot to the touch. They also looked as if they were glowing, and in this light Fry supposed that they were.

A sudden jarring bolt of steam rushed out from underneath the egglike cockpit. Fry leaped back, startled, and then slowly came forward again. The steam clouds were still billowing off the strange ellipse, accompanied once or twice by the popping associated with metal as it succumbsto sub-zero temperatures. Fry edged closer to the trench, trying to get a good look at the cockpit of the not-train. He could see his reflection now, distorted in the ebony material that made up the not-train's outer shell. Not wanting to fall onto the rails below, he stepped back slightly.

If he tried to jump the gap, there was a large chance that he wouldn't make it. Fry wasn't athletic in the least, and he had no contingency if he were to get into to trouble with both Bender and Leela incapacitated. He put out a hand, braced himself mentally, and leaned forward into the side of the craft. The second his hand touched the metallic shell, a rush of extreme pain met his nervous system. He leaped back, plunged his hand into the snow, and fought the urge to scream at the top of his lungs. The shell of the not-train was hot, very hot, hotter than metal should be in the middle of a snowbound wasteland.

Regaining composure, he inspected his wounded digits. The flesh on them had been burnt raw, but it was nothing more than a superficial injury. Ignoring the throbbing pain that had begun to set in, he turned back towards the cockpit. He traveled around the front of the machine, taking advantage of the fact that the burners that had uncovered the tracks hadn't gone any further than the front of the train itself. The egg was still spouting heat and steam, and it had already turned most of the snow around it into slush and mushy semi-water. Once or twice, Fry had to pause to yank his feet out of melting crevasses in the snow.

Finally, after several moments of effort in traversing the melted snow, he reached the back end of the egglike cockpit. Fry had begun wondering whether he should come up with a euphemism for this new machine, seeing as he was the once who discovered it. He was deciding between "egg-train" or "magic black egg" when he noticed a strange marking near the back, in between the cockpit and the miniature egg boxcars.

After more silent debates with his self, he decided to investigate the mark. To reach it would involve balancing deftly in between two structures that, if he slipped, would deliver a painful reminder of why this was such a bad idea in the first place. Fry wasn't one to listen to common sense, though, so he reared up for a carefully positioned jump.

The jump was almost a failure, if not for the fact that the strange symbol Fry was investigating was the Iceixican word for "hatchway". In an effort to keep himself aligned with the narrow bolt connecting the two machines, he had pressed on the door only to tumble through into the narrow cabin inside of the egg. All around him was silent machinery, just as sleek and malicious looking as the outside. Fry was afraid to touch anything, just in case this was another trap and that the controls were electrified or rigged to explode. Soon, however, he managed to overcome his newfound fear of touching strange objects, and he pressed a few buttons, only to receive a curt beep as a response.

Fry was no train engineer, but he knew for a fact that being stuck in an egg-train that wasn't about to move was comparably better than risking death out in the cold. It was much warmer in here, too. Even now, he felt his strength returning with every second he spent in this mini-sauna. He turned to leave the cockpit, hoping that he wasn't too late to save his friend's toes.

* * *

Bender was having a wonderful time. More than wonderful, in fact, this was a positively grand time. This was the best time that he'd ever had, the most spectacular and phenomenal night at the tables he'd ever had. So far, he'd beaten the house's odds at craps three times, won at least $120,000 in astrodollars, and had picked up the numbers and hotel keys of three of the club's premier dancers. Also, the bar's happy hour had been on what seemed like a continuous loop for the past three hours. That was some wonderful luck.

"You're lucky tonight." The pit boss grumbled, obviously vexed at losing a substantial sum of the casino's money, which was part of the reason he was stating the obvious in an attempt to rationalize the fact that he would most likely be downsized very soon to a position somewhere very unpleasant.

"Damn right, chip jockey," Bender said as he scraped his winnings into his chest cupboard hastily. "Now to cash out my sweet loot and wave it around, preferably in everyone's face!"

He walked off, his stride purposeful and well-practiced. Almost immediately after he spoke, two floozies detached themselves from the nearby bar and latched on to him, one on each arm. Bender was lost in his delusions of grandeur, which was a perfectly normal state of mind for a robot of his caliber. All he could think about was how much alcohol could be purchased with his newfound loot. Since he was too preoccupied to use his built in calculator, he simply decided on the round number of "a lot".

It was only a short walk to the cash out counter. The cashier stood just behind it, a surly looking calcu-bot with a rounded torso. After funneling his chips into the cylindrical drum on the front of the cashier, he began to patronize his newfound entourage.

"So, you ladies like a bendin' man?" He asked rather suavely, not like he actually needed to aks. The ladies always fell for a bendin' man. He turned his head to get a good look at one of them, and then he realized something: there were no ladies. He whirled around, looking like a pinwheel in front of the cashier's box. His floozies had vanished into thin air. He turned back to the cashier.

"Hey pal, you see any girls here with me?" He asked.

"No," the teller responded curtly.

"You sure? One of em' had a beauty circuit on her left can."

"I ain't seen no dame with no beauty circuit."

"Fine, just give me my loot for what I gave you and I'll leave."

"What loot? You ain't given me no chips."

Bender was now getting annoyed, there was something very strange going on here. First he lost his floozies, now his cash was suddenly missing? No way was he walking out of here without that. Floozies were one thing, but you never left the loot behind.

"What'dya mean? I gave you my chips a few seconds ago!"

"Sure you did, and I'm the King of Siamworld!"

Bender tried to think up another snarky response, but nothing came to mind. For a few moments he pondered over whether he should rob the teller or not, but eventually he decided against it, taking into account the general effectiveness of the security droids loitering around most of the exits. He sidled back to the bar rather quickly, now eager to drown his sorrows in a drink.

"Hey, barkeep." Bender was usually good at garnering attention, but tonight it seemed like everyone was trying to ignore him. "Get me the biggest drink you've got."

The barkeep, it seemed, wasn't about to take any orders. He merely stood there with his back to Bender, cleaning a single glass. Bender was about to give the guy a friendly slap across the back of his metal head, but then he noticed something. The glass in the bartender's hand was clean, but he just kept rubbing it anyway. Even stranger, the pattern repeated after three strokes of the glass, skipping back like a broken MP3 after the third stroke. The bartender's hand was also glowing green.

Bender reached out to tap the bartender on the shoulder, but before he could the manbot turned around. His entire face was only a few stretching lines of green code, the rest of him peeled away like an onion. The effect passed after only a few seconds, and the code replaced itself with a heavier outline, then a normal robotic face.

"Sorry about that mac, I didn't hear ya. Now what'll ya have?"

Bender had already run away screaming from the bar and was jetting across the casino floor. In accordance with the adage about unstoppable force meeting immovable objects, he promptly ran into a rather large patron which resulted in the two of them crashing to the floor.

The patron looked as if he'd been dipped in green chocolate, which did exist despite there being absolutely no market for it. The green lines that made up his outline twisted and writhed and rewrote themselves, the blackness behind it making the experience all the more surreal.

"Watch where you're going, jerk!" the coded figure said, getting up and passing by a very distraught Bender. Bender did the same, going in the opposite direction from the man as fast as possible. Unfortunately, Bender's haste resulted in him stepping straight into the path of a large crowd of tourists betting on roulette. His arm smashed into a tourist's waist, resulting in a patch of green code being revealed. A foot stamped down on an expensive triple toed loafer, showing more coding there as well.

Bender pushed his way out of the crowd, leaving more half-built strangers shaking their heads at the crazy robot staggering through the casino. Bender looked around wildly, trying to avoid the gaze of several patrons as well as the security bots that seemed to be inching closer in an attempt to sedate him. Suddenly, an exit door caught his eye. He ran for it, heaving it open and stepping inside the room beyond it without thinking.

Bender hadn't been in here before. In fact, he couldn't remember even entering the casino; he'd been having too much fun robbing them blind. Now he wasn't even sure if the casino was even real, or if the people inside it were real. Was he real?

He gave himself a small knock on the chassis. He stayed solid, that meant at least he wasn't some program. Now to the business of finding out exactly where he was now. He looked around, not really looking at anything considering the room he'd stepped into was pitch black. Apparently this wasn't a storage room like the sign had said. He turned around to face the door he'd come through, but it was gone. Wonderful, now he was stuck here in an endless black room without anything to do. At least the casino had had blackjack and hookers, even if it was filled with weird code people.

Then, as if thinking about it willed them into existence, he spotted a small green dot lying on what presumably was the floor. He walked toward it, noticing that it pulsated on and off in rhythm with some unseen force. Grasping it between two fingers, he realized it was the number three, just the number three all alone in a dark room. So what the hell did that mean! Then he saw another green dot on his shoulder, the number seven. He picked it off like a scab and flung it away, along with its brother. They both fell to the floor, still glowing in the darkness.

The glow had gotten brighter, and now it was coming from all around. More dots had appeared on the ground, all of them were numbers. Bender looked up, it was snowing numbers. They were falling slowly, turning this way and that as if they were directed by some unseen breeze. Some of them had even clumped together, and now they were a mess of numbers instead of just one. Bender flicked the numbers five and three off the top of his head. They were falling faster now, and in pairs too. Eight, five, twelve, one, they just kept coming. Bender wanted to get out of here; he wanted to go back to the casino. Was he going to be stuck here forever? Stuck in some weird code room hell until his motor burned out and he was a lifeless hunk of metal?

The number thirteen fell onto his visor. _Yes that's very likely_, it seemed to say.

* * *

Turanga Leela was no train engineer, but at this moment in her life she truly wished she was. It was a very large kick in the teeth that this moment of her life consisted of figuring out the controls of an alien train in less than the time it took for half a contingent of ice monsters to batter them to bloody pulp. Making things worse was the fact that she had a disabled robot and a tenth level cretin along for the ride.

Okay, maybe that was a bit harsh on Fry. But still, she needed serious help, and Fry wasn't one for anything serious.

"C'mon you piece of junk!" she battered the instrument panel for what seemed like the umpteenth time. "We need to get out of here! Do you understand that? Get! Out! Of! Here!" She punctuated each remark with another blow to the circuitry.

Fry crouched behind her, watching out the rear viewport as their tormentors destroyed another one of the boxcar eggs trailing behind them. Bender crouched next to him, still in sleep mode and still malfunctioning. Every half minute or so, he would issue forth another hiccough-like statement from his data port. It sounded somewhat like garbled speech, so Fry could make out certain phrases like "I'll have a double", "I fold", and "What do you mean 'counterfeit bills'?"

Leela had moved on from percussive maintenance, and was now crouching underneath the dashboard trying to hotwire the train. Hotwiring was a standard skill in most orphanages, and Leela had been adept enough to steal a Tempura Hovercar one time when she was twelve. Now this system had decided to test her memory a bit. A few electric crackles, some swearing, and the gentle hum of an engine being woken up from a long sleep was all the dialogue that passed through the cockpit in those tense minutes.

"I've got it! Hold on, Fry!" Leela punched the gas. True to form, the train crawled forward, building up the 31st century equivalent of steam as it dragged the busted open cargo it had been carrying behind it. The ice monsters, playing up the stereotype of being large and rather dim, didn't notice that their quandary had decided to suddenly get up and start moving again. They kept smashing until the boxcars had moved out from underneath them, and then they ran alongside it, shouting in their mumbled ice monster language.

Fry pulled back the cockpit door, hoping he could do something to discourage them from following. Seeing as they were at least a story taller than Fry, this hope was rather unfounded. Instead, he crawled down to the small ledge between the train cabin and the first boxcar, ignoring Leela's shouts to get back inside. Fry didn't know what he was doing here, but he'd watched action movies before so he thought he had the gist of how to unhitch a train from boxcars. It turned out that this train worked almost exactly like those from Earth, except for a small difference in the power lines connecting the brake lights, which resulted in a mild electrocution.

Fry watched as the boxcars slowed to a stop behind them, also watching with glee as the ice monsters slowed down and resumed their pummeling of the unknown cargo they'd been carrying. He slipped back inside quietly, hoping that Leela wasn't too furious with him. She was.

"What the hell were you doing out there! Were you trying to get yourself killed? Or do ice monsters not scare you now?"

"Sorry, Leela," Fry said apologetically. "Just thought that unhitching the boxcars would help, is all."

Leela's face softened a little, feeling guilt return now that the danger had passed.

"It's okay." Fry said, predicting her words for her.

"I didn't say sorry."

"Oh, okay. So, where're we going?"

"I don't know. The Professor decided against giving us a railway map of the planet. I guess we'll just follow the line until it stops."

Fry shut the door, blocking out the cold. He hoped that whatever power source that this thing ran on would last until morning, he didn't think that his fingers could take anymore cold without cracking off. In front of them, the snow broke apart and melted almost instantly as the small egg began to pick up speed. The silver rails shone in the cabin lights, and they cast ghostly shadows ahead of them into the darkness. Fry sat down opposite Leela in the captain's chair. He figured that the thing was automatic, so Leela probably wouldn't have a lot to do. Good, she needed the rest.

The black egg sped on through the white snow.

**

* * *

**

**Author's Note:** Sorry about the long delay, you know how it is with Christmas.

I will submit a new chapter sometime around the end of January. Need to study for finals.

Comments on quality, plz.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

It had been at least two days since the Planet Express Crew had departed to Ice XI. At eight-fifteen in the morning the office was deadly silent, almost like some storm front made of melancholy had swept through and left a trail of worry and uncertainty in its wake, with good news relief efforts being slow to respond. This uncomfortable analogy was shattered the moment the company's proprietor stepped through the front door:

"THAT HARLOT! THAT SHE-SHARK! WHO THE HELL DOES SHE THINK SHE IS!"

Farnsworth's voice, like a thousand tone-deaf parrots being run over by a steamroller, carried to all corners of the office. It drew out the three resident employees, Amy the intern, Hermes the bureaucrat, and Zoidburg the inefficient doctor. Scruffy the janitor came into the front lobby as well, and positioned himself in his usual seat on the couch hoping he would be able to inject his insights into the conversation.

"What is it, Professuh?" Hermes said, slightly annoyed at the fact he had to postpone his annual paper sort to attend to whatever crisis was at hand now. He'd had to put it off three times in the past month, and the only good thing about that was that now he'd have to fill out the Postponement Forms in triplicate and send them back in to be notarized again. This time, he'd go with the green. They seemed to be a good match with the manila envelopes.

"What is it? WHAT IS IT YOU ASK ME?" The Professor bellowed, drawing up to his full height of five foot five. Both Hermes and Amy winced as they heard a vertebrae snap back into alignment. "It's those pinheaded pinheads down at the bank! In all their infinite pinhead wisdom, they've decided to cancel our account with those other pinheads on Ice XI! If I had a dollar for every pinhead I've had to deal with this morning, I'd be a rich old man!"

"Besides the pinheads, Professor, what were you yelling about before that?" Amy inquired, hoping that the Professor could remember back that far.

"Oh, that... IT'S NOTHING IMPORTANT! GO DO YOUR PINHEAD INTERN WORK!" His tone wasn't angry. It was more like a hesitant, bile-filled stutter. The Professor pushed past them, trying to get to his office. Zoidberg, however, stood in his way.

"Professor, is there something you need to tell us?" he asked, trying to affect a stern fatherly manner. The Professor was unshaken.

"No, now get out of the way or I'll cut your slurry ration from nothing to negative five!"

The Professor's rebuttal cleared the doorway faster than a fiber cocktail. Hermes and Amy, still inquisitive about their elderly boss's rants, followed close behind. Farnsworth put up with it until he reached the lab, then he closed the door on them leaving them stranded out in the hallway without explanation.

"What do you think he was talking about, Hermes?" Amy said after a short pause.

"Darned if I know, maybe he started up dat oceanic cross-breedin' experiment again. I told him it wasn't a good idea from de start, but he said…"

The rest of Hermes' tale was cut off by the door to the Professor's lab swinging back open. The Professor stood there with a rather threatening look on his bony old face, and in his hand he held a rather threatening looking butter knife covered in a rather threatening looking cytoplasmic substance.

"Can I help you?" he said in a rather threatening tone of voice.

Hermes was distraught at being found out while criticizing his boss, so Amy had to step in for him. "Sorry to disturb you, Professor. We just wanted to know what the problem was with the bank."

"Uhh, yes Professuh." Hermes chimed in, regaining control of his motor functions, "It just seemed a little out of place, dat's all. I mean, banks make errors all the time. It's as Earthican as ten year wars and massive economic bailouts."

"I told you, it's nothing to worry about. Nothing at all that has to do with one of our chief rivals in the delivery business..."

"Which rival?" Hermes asked.

"No one! It doesn't involve the money we've just lost in any way!"

"How?" Amy inquired.

"No! It's not about a massive conspiracy that stretches beyond this planet and envelopes Ice XI itself!"

"What is it?" they both said together.

The Professor, realizing he had painted himself into a corner with nimbleness that someone with superhuman speed would have applauded, resigned himself to his fate.

"Alright fine, I'll tell you. But you're not going to like it, mark my words."

Hermes drew out a small handheld clipboard. He liked to take notes.

"It all started at the bank this morning…"

* * *

Morning on Ice XI usually involved three distinct parts. First the sun would rise, drenching the entire tundra in a glow reserved for neon lights at a dance club. The air would become less knifelike and the chill preserved in it would subside. Then, any sunlight that wasn't reflected off of the bleached white ground would serve the purpose of melting a tiny fraction of the massive snowfall that had built up in the night. Which, considering the annual snowfall of the entire planet exceeded over a thousand inches daily, was the most triumphant definition of futility.

Racing over the bone white ground was a small black dot that rested on two silver tracks buried deep in the snow. That scene was no less mind-boggling than the force with which the dot managed to cut through the massive drifts that had built up on the valley floor. As it sliced through various snow banks it left a roadway that would have made the ancient Romans proud. It was ramrod straight, packed down by the weight of the craft and showed absolutely no regard for the lay of the land. Then again, the land would show little to no regard for it in the coming months.

There was one person straddling the outside of the little black dot. To someone watching it from above it would look as if a small orange speck had managed to lodge itself onto the black dot's surface, almost like it was about to come down with a minor case of chicken pox. This small orange dot was Philip J. Fry, and he was having the time of his life.

The ship crashed straight into another bank, spraying Fry with more powdered snow in an attempt to dissuade him from looking over the side rail again. He was laughing like a toddler that had discovered the wonders of annoying the family pet, and every bump and jostle of the ship seemed to bring out more of the kid in him. He was about to stick his neck out into the cold again when he heard a concerned voice…

"Philip J. Fry! What are you doing?"

He turned around to see Leela, awake and very cross, leaning out the door of the cockpit. Fry leaned back from the rail.

"Sorry, Leela. Did I wake you up?"

"No, the autopilot did. We're about ten miles from the depot." She leaned back into the cockpit, Fry walking back over out of curiosity. "I've been up for the past hour guiding us in, and you've been…?"

"Out," he said, shaking a few clinging snowflakes off his jacket. That wonderful grin was still plastered all over his face. Leela looked at him with her usual face of quiet annoyance, or was it just tiredness? With her, he could never tell which was which.

As Fry headed inside, he noticed that Bender was awake. Of course, Bender wasn't really awake in the traditional sense, as his brain had fragmented greatly during the crash. Nevertheless, he was somewhat happy to see Fry.

"FRRRYYY! SO GOOOD 2 C U!" he warbled, his voice taking on a more technologic quality then the one he'd had before, "WHERE WE NOW?"

"Hang in there, Bender. We're coming up on a depot, or something," Fry responded, sidling into the co-pilot's chair beside Leela. "So, where're we headed, mi capitán?" he asked with a Branniganesque timbre coating his voice.

Leela's glance told him to knock it off. She then looked over at a radar screen, then gave him his answer.

"Depot-J 3050. It's the only one we've been able to get a signal from for the past hour."

"So how long until we get there?" Fry asked impatiently.

"Ten minutes, give or take a top speed of-."

Leela's exposition was cut short as Fry grabbed the accelerator. The ship shot forward even faster. Leela tried protesting, but she had both hands busy with the steering wheel. Fry, meanwhile, was doing alright with guiding them on a collision course with the rapidly approaching mountain chain ahead of them. In ten minutes, the ship had traversed the space of ten miles in only three minutes. From there, Leela managed to retake control of the ship, lest they crash and end up smoking piles of flesh carved into an ice door. The ship came to a violent stop, just outside the door leading into the hanger bay.

A single crackling message came through on the ship's radio: _"Input now command entry command put now in."_ It was broken Earthican, but Leela understood it well enough. After a few seconds of guess and check, the hanger opened and the ship sidled inside.

It was dark inside the chamber. The lights above, if there were any, had been replaced with little black holes that had eaten everything inside the depot and were now lingering overhead gasping for new matter. The train rolled to a stop in what Fry supposed was the middle of the floor. The hangar door snapped shut behind them, leaving their little craft trapped inside a coal bin made for giants. Leela was the first to attempt an investigation.

The back hatch opened with a creak that, strangely enough, hadn't made itself present before now. Leela dropped to the floor, Fry following clumsily behind her. Bender, still trying to get his thoughts together, stayed up in the cockpit. The supposed black holes hadn't eaten them yet, and no ice monsters had tried to separate their heads from their shoulders. Things were looking up somewhat.

"Hello, anybody home?" Fry called, his voice reaching up to the ceiling in a rather dramatic reverb effect. Leela was more hesitant; she had decided to wait for someone else to call out to them, seeing as how Ice XI wasn't too friendly to tourism. So far, no one had responded to Fry's shout. Fry was about to call again, when suddenly a voice came out of the darkness.

"You don't need to shout. We're right here."

Leela brought out an electro-torch from her coat pocket. Bringing the exposed copper wiring to its tip, she lit up the entire room with a single phosphorescent flash. The room was big, much larger than Fry's venture of "really, really, really big" or even Leela's estimate of "hangar sized". The depot stretched on for at least a mile into the ice mountain, the end of it only a faint grey smudge in the distance. Their train had stopped at the very end of the track leading in from the outside. On the floor surrounding their train were smaller black tracks that had been etched into the ground with machine precision, looking almost like fine circuitry in a computer. Leela figured that they were for trams leading to the other side of the great hall.

Their egg train was a miniature compared to the ones surrounding it. They were lifted high above the tracks on magnetic couplings, looking like salamis crossed with zeppelins crossed with Cadbury eggs. Their color was also jet black, but somehow they looked more imposing then their tiny craft. Their black was much blacker, and less reflective like they were painted with the black holes that had been exposited about earlier. The room was cold, almost colder than the outside. Fry could still see his breath despite them being indoors.

"Please forgive the cold. We aren't accustomed to visitors on our planet. The heating bill would be astronomical otherwise."

The voice was the same one that had called out to them in the dark. Leela and Fry both turned to its source, a small crate just a few meters away. On top of it there was a strange grey man. He was almost like a human, but he had some fundamental difference that made you stop and wonder just exactly what human he was and what part of the world he was from. To elaborate, he was rather pale. He was gangly too, like somehow he had decided against muscle mass and had opted to be made entirely out of straight lines and joints instead. His eyes had no pupils, and the irises were a deep blue.

"Welcome to the depot. It is very lucky that the two of you have made it here. I am called The Forman."

"Wait, where did you say we were?" Fry asked.

The Forman looked annoyed, as did most people did during first contact with a being like Fry. Leela saved the conversation quickly.

"We're your delivery crew. My name is Turanga Leela, and this is Fry."

"Ah. Yes. We were expecting you." The Forman said. "Before the invasion."

"What happened here? The entire planet seems like it's deserted."

"Trust me. It isn't." There was a somber tone to The Forman's voice, and the echoing of the chamber surely helped it along.

"Do you work here, or something?" Fry asked again.

"Yes. I am the master controller for the western mines."

"Where's everyone else?"

"They've been captured. Or they're in hiding."

Fry had more questions, but Leela cut him off.

"I came to this depot after the invasion began. I was out on the Iqualu Glacier front when I saw the ships coming down from the sky. My students managed to find me here. They brought others with them."

"Students?"

"I teach surveying on occasion. This depot is located away from most major settlements. No living beings have come here since we lost contact with our capital city."

The conversation was suddenly interrupted by a loud clang of metal. The three looked back to see Bender stumbling across the tarmac, mumbling to himself.

"Uh, that's Bender. He's not feeling well." Fry said, wincing as he watched his friend smack into a nearby tram. The stricken robot's head twisted around on its body, catching sight of his friends. He seemed to remember them, and he called out a jumbled strand of pidgin and numbers.

"HELLLLO, FRYYYY! LE-LAA! SO GOOOOD 2 C U! WAT WE DOING HAR?" His though processes were now severely muddled.

"Can you do anything to help him, Mr…?" The Forman had left their side and was rushing after Bender's flailing path through the depot. Catching up with him, he pulled open Bender's CPU panel and began to poke around in Leela's botched up repair job. After pulling a tangle of wires out through the port, he turned around to face the darkness and shouted a hurried phrase in Iceixican. Almost instantly several acolytes, young, eager and dressed in scarlet robes, rushed out of the darkness and took up places around the robot. Fry craned his neck trying to see past them, watching them take out strange devices and murmur to each other in their own language.

"Hey, what are you doing?" he asked. He tried to break through the acolyte's barrier, but they merely rebuffed him. The Iceixicans were now trying to hold down a flailing Bender, whilst simultaneously attempting to remove his head. All the while, his speech got more and more fragmented:

"HEYYY! Stop PUUL-ing Myyy AR-AR-AR-ARRRM! OW! Ahhhhh thanks A LOT ya moron, NOW I GOTTA KIK YOUR ASSSQBXKEMBRK JLALKE KR0210010101001101011010101…"

Leela could stand being stood up, ignored, and altogether fibbed to by these people, but messing with semi-trustable friends was another matter. She aimed a kick squarely at the closed acolyte, but before it could connect he had her by the boot. Two other forward-thinking Iceixicans pinned her arms to her sides and left her to thrash about fruitlessly. Fry, meanwhile, was avoiding unwanted attention from two rather large female acolytes. Bender had now disappeared under a sea of writhing grey and scarlet masses. Occasionally one of his limbs would poke out, but it was soon sucked back down into the maelstrom. After more mutterings, clicks, and occasional digital curses, the crowd parted.

Fry and Leela were both well subdued by this point. They looked at their deactivated friend, who was sitting on the floor in a meditative position. He looked as good as new, except for one arm where his leg needed to be. After a young student corrected this mistake, The Forman approached him and pressed the small reboot button located on the back of Bender's head. Instantly he sprang to life as if given a good swift kick. He looked around, at his two stupefied friends, and uttered one single phrase:

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

His voice carried up to the ceiling. Fry and Leela were still stupefied, and now half confused, at this turn of events. The acolytes let them go, and they approached their now fully operational friend.

"I said that out loud, didn't I?" Bender inquired, returning to his normal volume of voice, which was still rather loud for a robot. His friends both nodded. Bender cursed as he took out a single Zuban cigar, and Fry took this as a sign that his best friend was back to normal.

"Great to have you back, Bender," he said, voicing his sentiment.

"Damn right, you are." Bender replied, "Life is just a boring sack of space crap without me, Bender." A few puffs on his cigar reinforced this grandiose statement.

"He seems to have massive protocol damage. Should we correct him?" The Forman asked.

"No, he's usually like this," Leela replied, half-smiling at The Forman's confusion. The Forman decided not to introduce himself, and instead continued to speak with the purple haired woman and her pet monkey.

"Our apologies for the deception. We Iceixicans are good with robots." The Forman gestured to his students, who looked very pleased with themselves. "This. Er. Robot. Is mere child's play compared to the many specimens that work beside us in the mines."

"Hey! I take offense to that!" Bender yelled indignantly, "My great-granddaddy was a miner back in the days of the Promethium Rush on Zarliss 5; best in the three systems!"

"Really? What was his output?" The Forman asked.

"Er… seven… billion tons a day!" Bender shot back.

"Interesting. Our miners output roughly twelve billion liters of water per solar rotation. Do you know the exchange rate between the two?"

Fry tried to remember back to high school science class, but then remembered he had been home schooled instead. Leela, who had more pressing matters at mind, decided to steer to conversation back towards hostile invasion by unknown powers.

"Mr. Forman, sir. If you don't mind my asking, what invaders were you talking about?"

The Forman said nothing; he merely snapped a finger and pointed back into the darkness from whence the acolytes came. Two acolytes rushed off, and there could be heard a whirr of motors as what sounded like a small lift was started up. They came back with the lift, as well as a small robot that had been hoisted onto it. It looked like a spider that had been crushed by a newspaper. Its legs were folded up underneath it, with a couple of servos broken and twisted out of alignment. The frontal receptors, though they were made of hard plastic, had been shattered and gutted with the wires hanging out of them. The transmitter case on the back had been hacked open, with the marks on it suggesting that a buzzsaw had been used. The entire carapace had also been melted severely, and now the whole thing looked like a clay doll forgotten and left in the sun. Bender retched when he saw it. Disabled bots were never a pretty sight.

Leela recognized the model immediately. It was an Optic-Scout Bot, one of the newer models. They had sent out ones just like it after the escapees from the Cookieville orphanarium, and they had had a ninety-nine point nine five successful retrieval rate.

She tried to remember the manufacturer. It had been a small Buffalo-area firm, and they'd been bought out a few years ago. She tried to remember the company that had done it, but these things were commonplace in the 31st Century. The Forman decided to speed things up a little, and he knelt down beside the robot. He turned it over to reveal a small white line of letters that had been melted slightly out of shape. They were still legible enough. All three members of the Planet Express crew gasped at the exact same moment, Fry a little slower due to his inability to speed-read.

The letters read: "This droid manufactured by Mom's Friendly Robot Company. If found, please return immediately to any Mom's Friendly Robot Shoppe. No incentive applies."

* * *

**Author's Note:** With all respect to PsychoZeke, I decided to keep Hermes' accent the way it is. To go back through the story and change it would take too much time.

Finals are over with. Managed to get straight A's, I think.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Mom's Friendly Robot Company was founded in the waning days of the 27th Century. Back then mind-expanding LSD soda pop cost only ten cents, the League of Planets, still reeling from the damage caused by the Atomic Civil War, was carefully monitoring a new situation erupting in the Galactic Balkans. (We don't want to fight, but by Vorshanx if we have to…), and people talked by omniphone instead of simply hot-linking into each other's minds.

It was into this turbulent environment that the company known as Mom's was born. Only at that time it wasn't called Mom's, nor was it headed by her. The firm called itself the Friendly Robot Company, and it was staffed by the brothers Zechariah and Orson Friendly. The name itself was a misnomer, as both brothers were neither particularly friendly nor unpleasant, and instead only strived to be remembered as the bosses that kept the dangerous cyanide reactors shielded and didn't turn the deadly mind beasts on hapless employees asking for a raise. Nevertheless, they kept a tight ship.

Friendly's grew slowly, but after five years had gone by they had managed to accumulate ten factories staffed by over five thousand workers. This was small potatoes compared to some of the other corporations, but it was enough to sustain the two with a considerable sum left over. That considerable sum was what attracted the eccentric businessman Arthur T. Goldwater to their small business. Goldwater thought big, bigger than most people did at the time. It was these big thoughts that had seen him fired from several prestigious corporations for using their funds for ridiculous quasi-baked ideas. Somehow, by some miracle, he managed to get himself hired at the Friendly Robot Company, and right from the start he proved his reputation a hundred times over.

Goldwater had shared his ideas with the Friendly brothers one morning after rooting through the office garbage for working parts. His plan was simple: robotics of that era had been a long and drawn out process. Even with the concept of mass production in full force it was still easier to manufacture robots by hand for one client. Goldwater's idea changed all that with his concept of nodular robots, using the same template with special modifications for each brand of robot produced. This way, if one bot broke down, parts from another bot could repair it. It was a simple idea, but it took the world by storm. By 2810, the planet Earth was swarming in Friendly Company robots, and the brothers Friendly were swarming in greenbacks, gold and for some strange reason a small amount of plutonium.

Thirty years would pass before the next big innovator came to the Friendly's doorstep. By then, Goldwater had retired and gone offworld to search for the next big thing. He was last heard from in the Greelom system, ranting over something called the self-propelling atomic road paver. Orson Friendly had built up a rapport with a kindly businessman referred to only as "Father Clockwork", and had struck a deal with him to distribute their robots. From there the Friendly Company branched out into the stars, spreading throughout the universe, and Father Clockwork's influence on Orson Friendly grew along with it.

2857 was a passable year by Earthican standards. It was marred by the collapse of the League, and the ascension of its better-or-for-worse predecessor, the DOOP. It was also the last year that a Friendly was the head of the Friendly Robot Company. Father Clockwork had finally assumed the position of CEO after the death of Orson Friendly and the incapacitation of Zechariah Friendly in an unfortunate space cycle accident. Orson had been diagnosed with cancer in the late 2840s (no doubt the fault of handling plutonium without lead shielding) and had been bed ridden for several years. His last words, according to Clockwork, were. "Who will build the robots when I'm gone?"

After that, Friendly's grew even larger. Clockwork proved to be a very shrewd businessman if not an entirely ruthless corporate adversary. The main factory in New New York was shut down, and its workers adequately compensated for three weeks of pay. Other factories followed suit, and their living workers were replaced with company drones. Gone were the days of knowing the customer and expending effort to build their robots, now it was nothing but a singular pursuit of profit.

Decades passed, things changed. The Friendly Company grew larger, now calling itself Father Clockwork's Friendly Robot Company. By 2887 it had encompassed several different robotics firms, along with companies outside their sphere of interest. A screen door factory here, a newspaper there. It was like a creeping vine, so slow that no one noticed. People did notice, however, when Zechariah Friendly spoke out against Clockwork's regime. From his bed he gave an oratory, sent out across the universe to all people in all the languages in the sonic range. He spoke about the old days, about the trustbusters and the fat cat corporate types. He spoke about how one man alone couldn't sit on the throne of a non-specific deity, and how the trust and security of the people was being whittled away. He ended with a plea to the people to challenge Clockwork's way of thinking, and to take back their money and withhold their trust from people who would do harm with it. To his friends and family it sounded beautiful. To everyone else it sounded pretentious and used too many big words.

Zechariah Friendly died March twentieth 2887, three days after his speech. The cause was listed as natural death. No further inquiry was undertaken.

Shortly afterward, another death rocked the astropapers. Father Clockwork was found dead in his Park Avenue suite, apparently of a heart attack. No one saw it coming, though his servants had suspected as much. Father Clockwork had become rather paranoid during the last years of his life. He kept his doors locked as often as he possibly could, posted hired guards on every corner when he took his evening stroll, and frequently cursed to himself in the mirror when he thought no one was around. Aside from the cursing, it was a marked change in his normal confident aura.

Father Clockwork had a wife in the early years, though she had long filed for divorce and slipped into obscurity; but from that three year commitment he had received a daughter. Less than six months after her father had been buried, she took the reins of the company, asking only that her employees call her "Mom".

The rest, as they say, is history.

* * *

"I still don't get what the big deal is," Bender grumbled as they walked down the dark, icy passage. "If she wants the ice so bad, why not give it to her?"

"We Iceixicans are a proud people. We do not sell our precious ice to just any comers." The Forman had been answering their questions for an hour now, and he hadn't faltered on a single one. It was almost like he was stuffed to the gills with automatic tapes programmed with every possible question they could ask. He also rarely blinked. It was rather unsettling.

"So she just waltzed right in and took over?" Fry asked incredulously.

"Sure, if you could call invading a planet a type of waltz," Leela responded.

The tunnel stretched on. They'd been walking for at least an hour. Fry estimated (a very rough estimate, mind you) that the tunnel went on for at least a zillion more miles.

"We are here." The Forman stopped at a smooth patch in the tunnel wall. Placing a single hand on the ice, the others watched as small blue tendrils arced out from underneath his palm. They spread to encompass the entire wall, becoming weaker as they migrated farther from The Forman's hand. Finally, the smooth portion simply melted away, leaving another tunnel leading off into what looked like a very large sitting room.

They stepped inside. Leela brought out her electrotorch again, but The Forman simply waved a hand in the air. Light sprang out of the walls and bathed the room in a blue tinted glow. The others filed in behind them silently, as if nothing peculiar had happened.

"Why not call the DOOP for help?" Leela said, not really believing the sincerity in her voice. "Article Seven of the DOOP Charter clearly states…"

"It means nothing to us. The DOOP have long wished to control our mines. An invasion would only hope to serve their purposes." The Forman said sadly. "Iceixicans value their freedom over everything else. Not for its own purpose. But so they may serve their fellow man. The DOOP ask us to serve the galaxy. We oblige. But we have not truly joined them. Our independence is too great a price to ask for to join the galactic community. Now with this invasion they have the leverage they need."

"So Mom took over an entire planet, secretly, and no one thinks to come down and say 'hey how's it going'?" Bender said, "Wow. Talk about lack of communication."

"Does anyone know Mom is here?" Fry asked.

"No. To the galaxy we are just the same as we have been. Water is shipped from our world to theirs with no questions aksed. I suppose it is a weakness as well. Our isolationism. It breeds distrust and greed. It was only a matter of time before something boiled over."

The Forman had sat down at a small table covered in what looked like robotic entrails. His students had begun tinkering with robotic parts in workstations scattered across the small warren. Leela was pondering their situation heavily. If they called the DOOP, they'd get to watch Brannigan make a huge mess of things. If they didn't, they'd be stuck on Ice XI until the turn of the next millennium. Swallowing pride was hard, but a lot easier than dodging living ice chunks. She turned to The Forman.

"So, we can either wait here until someone gathers up enough brain cells to come down for a chat, or we can call the DOOP up and have them blast the planet to ice cubes." she said finally. "It's your choice."

The Forman sighed heavily. In his mind he turned over all the old phrases, everything he had been taught about honor and dignity from his days as a child. Those old phrases clashed violently with his current obligation, namely to save his planet from alien devils. It wouldn't be easy, it would attract controversy, but there was no alternative. He said only one thing:

"One of our students has an old omniphone. Call the ship."

* * *

Zapp Brannigan wasn't awake when the ship's communication beeper started up. He was much too busy exploring the various cracks and jags of his macho sub-consciousness. Describing what it was like would be like describing a pornographic film: ten minutes of exposition, eighty minutes of debauchery. He was just passing the exposition part when Kif, much to his satisfaction, jabbed him in the stomach with a stylus.

"Captain! We're receiving a message from the planet's surface."

"Eh..? Kif! Who gave you orders to wake the captain from his slumber?"

"You did sir." Kif produced a small tape recorder, prepared to back up his statement with a droning diatribe given to him several hours ago by a semi-lucid Captain Brannigan. Zapp waved it away and turned a knob on his control panel, bringing a stuttering choppy message out through the bridge speakers.

"Ice-ce ni-ni-nine to DO-OOP ship _Nimbus_. _Nimbus_, do you copy?"

Zapp stiffened, in more than one way, at the sound of the voice. It was Turanga Leela! She'd been delivering… something, to the planet's surface! Why was she still there? Was it something to do with him? It better have been!

"This is Captain Zapp Brannigan hailing freaky ice people. Freaky ice people, I have but one request: return Captain Leela to us or be blown into several smaller planetoids!"

"Captain Leela is perfectly safe. Captain Brannigan. We are omniing you a distress call."

Zapp was put off by this sudden change in tone. Leela's voice was sweet and seductive. This voice sounded like a robot being put through an organic vocalizer. It was almost like there were two different people on the other end of the line...

"Did we reach him? We did? Hey Zapp!"

And now it was joined by a screeching staccato reserved for the most dangerous of killbots! They were under attack!

"Kif, radio out orders to the sixteenth fleet! I want them here in less than six minutes! We're going to blast these creeps to space Hell and rescue Turanga Leela!"

Kif was about to explain to Zapp about faster-than-light travel for the umpteenth time, but once more he decided against it.

"_Nimbus_ to planet's surface, please radio your position." he stated tiredly.

"Good, Kif! We'll get a lock on them from space! Hope you like eating deadly uranium missiles for lunch, alien beasties!"

Kif sighed.

"No deal, Brannigan," the sweet voice was back again. "I know how your mind works, not very well I might add." nervous laughter punctuated that last remark.

"Very well then, we'll send down a squad of troopers!" he said, slamming a fist on the console for good dramatic measure.

"We don't have any troopers. We lost them on Tetros, remember?" Kif said.

"Oh, right. Well how about fighter pilots?" Brannigan said, "We could swoop down on them and crush them like unarmed civilians! Death from above, baby!"

"Our pilots got sucked into that black hole near the Quadrant of Abject Horror." Kif replied.

"Navy SEALs?" Brannigan said desperately.

"They sunk when you punched a hole in the bottom of their ship."

"Death bots?"

"In the shop."

"Ozone rangers?"

"They retired."

"Deadly space bees?"

"They're still looking for their hive."

"Daleks?"

"We don't have anything. We're a monitor ship. Twenty crewmen and a mechanic. That's it." Kif said bluntly.

"… What about mechs?"

Those one the other end of the omniphone heard the distinctive sound of Kif attempting to repress a fatal aneurysm. Zapp ignored it; he was too busy thinking about his lost love. She was trapped, trapped like a trapped owl in an owl trap. If he couldn't save her, who could. Carrot Top? He was too busy falling over stuff all the time. How, dear Lord in Heaven, how? How could he save her?

"… Zapp? Zapp!"

Zapp was too busy pondering to listen to the angelic choir coming through the speakers. Only when it was replaced by the robot voice was he stirred out of his melodrama.

"Hey, I was listening to that!" he said.

"You need to listen to this. We are in grave danger. You must send any forces you can down to the planet's surface. It is a matter of life and death."

"Wait, life _and_ death?" Zapp repeated. "How can it be a matter of both life and death?"

"I think he means life _or_ death," Kif cut in.

"No. I mean the same thing. I just phrased it differently."

"But you said you were in grave danger, which means you might die. So if it's a matter of life and death you can't be in grave danger." Zapp countered.

"True. But you assume we are presently in grave danger. We are safe. Therefore it is a matter of life and death."

"But if people are currently dying, then it's really about whether they live or die isn't it?"

"Precisely, which means you should really cut out this debate about philosophy AND SEND THE DAMN NAVY HERE NOW YOU STUPID SON OF A BI-"

The rest of the statement was cut off by a loud rustling noise and muffled shouts. The robot voice came back on the frequency.

"Apologies. But I do reiterate. We are in grave danger."

"Don't worry, proud sir. The DOOP is here to help."

"Yeah, big help! The last time you helped us we wound up stranded on Amazonia! You can't help-" Leela's voice was cut off by more rustling.

"Nevertheless, we'll send for the sixteenth fleet immediately. Can you explain your situation to us?"

They did, provoking both Zapp and Kif into a state of panic at the nature of the conspiracy below them.

"Good Lord," Zapp exposited. "An entire secret mining operation taking place right underneath our noses carefully planned to topple the intergalactic water markets through the selling of cheap water at prices that would undercut the competition leading to a massive takeover and monopolization of precious resources by a single corporation! It boggles the mind, Kif, what some people will do to make money."

"Baffling, sir," Kif agreed.

"That's not the half of it! You need to know who's behind it all!"

"No need, the only thing I need to know is where to find this scum-like excuse for a sentient being and punch him until his face begs for mercy! Kif!"

"Radioing sixteenth fleet, sir!" Kif cheered, eager to see that his captain was actually taking initiative for once. Zapp cut the link, cutting off Leela's shouts mid stream. Zapp Brannigan leaned back in his captain's chair. He was on a roll, a very big velour covered roll. It seemed like there was another medal in the works for good old Captain Brannigan and maybe a smaller accolade for Kif. He could see the headlines now: "Captain Brannigan Single-Handedly Saves Ice XI; Purple-Haired Goddess Forever Grateful". He could see it all now…

"Captain, sixteenth fleet has responded. They're heading is two point six mark six from the galactic zero centre. ETA three hours."

"Excellent. Now get me some coffee, Kif, and don't skimp on the cream. I believe it's time for a three hour power nap."

Kif sighed. It had been good while it lasted.

* * *

"'Don't worry, proud sir. The DOOP is here to help.' HA, BULLCRAP! I'll see to it that that ass weasel Brannigan doesn't come within five parsecs of this planet ever again!"

A crash resounded throughout the throne room, sent by a crystal ice cup shattering against the wall. Underneath its point of impact, a grown man cowered. He shook ice off his vest and brown hair and gathered up enough courage to croak out a single line.

"M-mother, perhaps you shouldn't smash their fine chinaaaaaaggh!"

"I'll do whatever I damn well please, you insolent puke stain!" The young man was now being held up by the scruff of his neck. His gibbering only reinforced what a pathetic scene it was.

"Oh, let him go mother. You know he didn't mean it." Another voice called out from behind her. Fast as greased photons, a hand came rocketing out of the darkness and painted a red trail across the pointed face of its owner. He stepped back slightly, his experience in this sensation helping him recover rather quickly. The woman let go of her younger son and rounded on the pointed faced son.

"Sure, and you know better than to disagree with your mother… You stupid crap walking bastard jammer!"

Another slap. The pointed faced son was sent hurtling to the floor.

"Besides, those royal craps left in a hurry. If they didn't want their fine china stolen, they shouldn't have left it out!" She picked up an ice spoon from the table and examined it closely.

"More importantly, what the damn bitch is this crap made of!" She threw it to the floor, shattering it into three more or less equal sized pieces. "I told you idiots to pack some up for examination back at the office!"

"Already done, mother," the pointy faced son had gotten back up from the floor. "I sent one statue to the office for research."

"Good, maybe then we can find out how to melt all this junk," she began pacing the floor rapidly. "I mean how hard is it to melt crapping ice? It's ice! I've been her ten minutes and already I want to take a blowtorch to it all!"

"I can get you a blowtorch, mommy," there came a third voice from somewhere off in the distance. "They had a whole big crate of em' downstairs."

The voice was too far away to slap, so she merely yelled at him. "That's nice, Ignar... Now go take a flying leap! Mommy's busy!"

"Yes, mommy." The voice sidled off dejectedly. For a moment it was rather silent, the only sound coming from the large hole that had been blasted in the ceiling of the ice cavern. It was pretty easy setting up business in the capital, especially with all the Iceixicans being trapped in the lower half of the city. Good for them, anybody that showed their face up here would get it lasered off by a mining bot. The thing that really ticked her off were those damn ice yeti things. Those puking snow drips had made life on this ice crap hell for the past couple of weeks, oh well, she had bigger plans for them…

"Walt! Larry!" She yelled into the dark.

"Yes, mother?" Two submissive voices answered back.

"Did our little courier ship show up yet?"

"Yes mother, they crash landed in the western ice fields. We retrieved their cargo this afternoon, but we didn't find them."

"Good. Hope they froze. Now I need to talk to you boys about something very, very important…"

Laughter rose in the throne room. Ringing down through the palace and into the caverns beyond. It signaled doom for the planet of Ice XI.

**

* * *

**

**Author's Note:** Hope you like this chapter, it is the pivot point in our little tale.

I hit a rough patch over the history of Mom's. I just decided to make it up, but the dating should be about right. I really liked the idea of making it this little business that was bought out and turned into this huge conglomorate. The American Dream turned into a nightmare.

Another week, another chapter. Comments plz.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

It had been several hours now since the Planet Express crew arrived in the caverns where The Forman and his students had made refuge, and already Fry and Bender were supremely bored. After hindering progress on the reconstruction of several work drones, the two had been given significant distraction in the form of two metal bars wrapped in soft packaging material. Leela watched the two of them smacked each other silly; it was simply amazing how many times those two could escape death or maiming by their own hand. By her own estimates, Fry was already a dead man many times over. He'd been chopped up, lost significant body parts, been gang-raped, and he'd even stuck his head in the ship's engine once and still he seemed no worse for the wear. It was almost like he was mathematical proof that luck existed and somehow it kept a close watch on people that didn't know better, like some giant safety harness of the universe.

She turned her back to their game of ultra-cricket and walked back down the tunnel she came from, away from the storage room. The Forman had given her the job of inventory. It was something she was good at and it made her feel useful, but with those two romping about in there it would be impossible to keep an accurate record. No matter, the only damage those two could possibly inflict would be a few dents in a box of sprockets.

The cavern system stretched on, completely visible through the clear ice that surrounded Leela's tunnel. It was easy to navigate, owing that to the fact that someone had painted a friendly little guide system on its walls. Red led back to the entry chamber they'd first called the _Nimbus_ in; yellow was the dormitory loop that led to the bed chambers, blue led to the outside. Why anyone wanted to go outside in this cold, Leela could only guess.

Nevertheless she took the blue path. It led on, intertwined with the yellow path to the dorms, until she reached the end and it curved away down another tunnel. She could already tell she was getting close to the outside, it had gotten even colder. Pulling her jacket around her tighter, she rounded another corner and saw the end. It was a small black dot painted in a lighter shade than the rest of the tunnel.

A few hundred more steps and she was in open air. The sky was midnight blue, and for miles around the ground beneath it was a perfect shade of white. The sun had set ages ago, leaving an eerie afterglow reserved for the most beautiful or most radioactive spots in the universe. Leela wasn't here to look at the stars; she was here for the comet. Back in the old old days, the days of poor hygiene and feudalism, everyone got so excited about them. People said they brought bad luck, evil omens, curses, and pretty much everything else that got blamed on minorities. Even now, after all this time, they still carried a sort of wonder about them. People still watched comets now, from rooftops and space stations. It was almost like a trance they'd never come out of, one they'd been in for a long time. Humans would always like pretty lights, Leela supposed, and tonight would be no exception.

It came over the horizon slowly, like an elderly man driving a Beemer. There was something ominous about the way it moved, like it was much more than a ball of rock and ice held together with what looked like cotton fluff. The tendrils it gave off swirled around it, making shapes with no angles and angles with no shapes in a startling display of natural geometry. It was almost alive. Almost.

"Pretty, isn't it?"

Leela almost slipped off her perch. She delivered a punch in the direction of the voice before realizing mid-attack that it was Fry. It was too late to stop it, and the punch grazed Fry's chin before swinging around in a wide arc. Leela watched him crumple to the floor, her emotions a mix of regret, pity, repentance, and a tiny bit of bloodlust.

"Fry! i'm so sorry!" she winced.

"S-okay," Fry responded weakly. "I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that."

After realigning himself, Fey settled down to watch the comet's lazy arc across the sky. It gave off a glow that seemed to dwarf everything in attendance, while at the same time making its owner look more important. It was like a fur coat. There was no sound, but it could be said that there was a very low rumble almost like that of a jet engine covered in millions of blankets; or maybe it was just the sound of silence discovered so long ago by those great acoustical scientists, Simon and Garfunkel. Either way, it was a wonderful thing to behold.

Leela's eyes never left the comet for a second. Fry's eyes, however, were looking at a much more beautiful sight. Lighting is a curious thing. It can help or hinder depending on the subject at hand. For instance, a light shined on the six Ancient and Transcendental Spirals of Midnight in the remote Lantigrade sector can aid in the linking of the soul into the collective consciousness of the universe (according to its followers), whereas a light shined into the eyes of a Murk from Tulloc VII can result in the rapid removal of ones head, limbs, and other important body parts.

Lighting was currently doing a wonderful job with Turanga Leela. The comet's glow had captured her in a silhouette, accentuating every curve of her face and eye. It made her glow wonderfully, like she'd swallowed something luminescent like Fry had once. Fry had always admired Leela, in both her mentality and physical form. He admired her no-nonsense attitude that somehow dissipated around him. He admired her piloting skills every time they got attacked by space pirates. He admired her commitment to duty and the people who depended on her. He admired her for her uniqueness, her beauty, and her uniqueness beauty. It was a shame he wouldn't get the chance to tell her, because an inconvenient distraction was just about to poke its pale head through the door…

"Excuse me, am I interrupting?"

Fry was knocked out of his thoughts so hard his cerebellum lost a tooth. Leela jerked up suddenly and whirled around. It was one of The Forman's students, apparently coming up to the surface for a much needed break.

"Uh, no. Not at all." Leela said hastily. Fry silently groaned.

He sat down between the two of them, further destroying any chance Fry had for romance on this evening. He too marveled at the comet's light, much less so than the others. An old Iceixican saying went: "Too much time spent watching the comet is not enough time spent tending the glaciers." and after the Great Workable Ice Famine of 2701 most Iceixicans had taken that mantra to heart. The young apprentice's mind was still on his work, and every now and again Fry and Leela caught snippets of conversation being held in the worker's mind. It went on uncomfortably for quite a while. A few muttered calculations, then a glance at the comet, then back to muttering. Fry was about to leave and do some harsher muttering of his own, when suddenly there came a small gasp, than a large cry of alarm.

"Something's wrong! Something's wrong with the comet! It's off! It's off! Everyone, come quickly! Something's wrong with the comet!"

He scrambled back to the tunnel, leaving Fry and Leela confused under the eerie glow of the comet.

* * *

Heading back inside, Fry and Leela were surprised to find the once orderly central warren had now become a madhouse of epic proportions. Papers doodled with mathematical calculations were strewn hither and thither, apprentices were arguing amongst each other in hushed tones foretelling doom and destruction, and the one who started it all was pleading his case to The Forman, gesticulating wildly the entire time. The Forman was calm, the only source of calm in the entire room. He put a hand on the shoulder of the frenzied apprentice, and it seemed to transfer some of the calm into his cerebral cortex. He stood up and turned to face his guests.

"I apologize for the confusion. We have discovered a slight problem with our natural satellite."

"What's the dealio?" Fry asked, confusing The Forman with his use of the vernacular.

"The comet has dropped lower in the sky!" the apprentice shouted. "I know because I've been tracking it for weeks. We Iceixicans like to keep things orderly, you know." He pulled out a graph. On it were the dates when the comet could be seen, along with its position in the sky above Ice XI. He pointed to today's date, which on Ice XI was something completely different from that of Earth's. Month Squiggledashdot showed that the comet was supposed to be in a wider arc than what they'd seen.

"You see? The comet has drooped! Drooped, I say! Usually its apex is much higher that what we saw!"

"So… What's the problem?" Fry asked. "So it got a little sleepy tonight, what does that have to do with us?"

"The comet may not control our tides. But it is a comet nonetheless." The Forman said. "If it were to crash into the planets surface we would be in serious trouble."

"How serious?" Leela said worriedly.

"Ice XI is not as stable as you think." The Forman continued. "The planet has no core other than a small nucleus of packed earth. The rest of the planet is merely gigantic plates of ice resting on each other. If one plate was damaged severely enough…"

"The entire thing would come crashing down." Leela finished.

"Cool!" Fry said, unaware that the room he was in was packed with natives uneager to watch their planet be alleviated of several thousand tons of its mass. He apologized quickly, and The Forman raised his voice to speak to his students.

"Students. Everything you are fearing is correct. Our planet will suffer a tremendous collision in less than five days."

The students reacted with more or less calculated horror. The Forman was able to calm them rather quickly, but he had a lot harder time convincing Fry.

"Five days? What happens if were still here when it happens! What if it happens when I'm asleep! What if we can't stop it in time! What if we-"

"Fry! As your captain, I order you to calm down!"

Leela's remark stopped him for a second, but then he merely started right back up again.

"What if we're right under it when it hits! What about all the other people! Who's doing this!"

"That last one I have the answer to," Leela said, turning to The Forman. "It's Mom. Apparently the standard mining techniques aren't fast enough for her. Can you get us to the capital?"

"Even if I could it would serve no practical purpose. Mom shut down the entire city when she invaded. Every level is patrolled frequently and without fail. Even if you could get in you'd have to make it past her goons. And then you'd have to make it past the ice men…"

"Ice men?" Leela queried, "You mean those yeti knockoffs we got attacked by on the way here?"

"Yes. Although they are natural fauna of the planet. They merely assumed you were a threat to them." The Forman replied, almost humorously.

"Oh, sorry." Leela said sheepishly.

"No mind. When Mom invaded we had no time to shut down the deeper tunnels. They must have made their way out onto the plains through our major cities. If anyone gets in their way they'd better have something up their sleeve."

"I know. They don't seem to like the heat." Leela said.

"Good. Now we must prepare. If we are going to the capital then we need a solid plan." The Forman turned back to his desk.

"I thought you said it would be impossible?" Fry asked.

The Forman turned back to them, the extraterrestrial equivalent of a gleam in his frosty pale eye.

"My planet has been invaded. I have met humans. I have called for the DOOP's aid. And I have learned about the musical _Cats_ all in a fortnight. To my younger self, that would seem impossible."

And with that remark, he left his compatriots standing in the center of the warren floor.

* * *

Hermes Conrad enjoyed the concept of meetings. They were unproductive, wasted everyone's valuable time, and they solved nothing and created a black hole of misery and loathing for anything resembling actual work. In short, they were the validation of a bureaucrat's existence. But after two days consisting of nothing but sessions about brainstorming about how the Professor would get back at Mom, Hermes was beginning to understand the meaning of the phrase "too much of a good thing".

Even now, in the twentieth such meeting of the day, Farnsworth was still going on at length about his plans. Most of them consisted of the same idea reworked to contain enough torture to make the architects of the Spanish Inquisition jealous. Hermes was reaching the end of his very long hemp rope, and so was everyone else. Even Zoidburg, whose ungodly saccharine demeanor sometimes managed to catch everyone in a good mood, had been dampened under the onslaught of surprise acid baths and guided missiles attached to crocodiles that Farnsworth had been going on about.

Hermes girded himself for this. It went against every instinct he had as a bureaucrat, but something had to be done. Hermes was going to make a valid point.

"Er… Professuh?"

The Professor stopped in the middle of explaining his elaborate diagram, which basically consisted of Mom and her three sons being flash-frozen and dipped in a large tank of Hyperkrill from Oceanus XII, to face Hermes.

"Yes Hermes. What is it?" He was annoyed at having been distracted from his revenge fantasies.

"All dis' seems like a very large waste of money. Planet Express hasn't usually been "in de' black" for very long, as dey' say."

"Yes, go on…" The Professor said, pondering whether or not he should use the large system of tubes leading to the zombified shark pit underneath the building on Hermes. He decided against it. The Central Bureaucracy would frown upon the termination of one of their employees within the fiscal year.

"Besides, dis' doesn't really seem like a solution. Even if we get back at Mom and her sons, we'll still loose money." The others nodded, which didn't have much significance as they'd been nodding off to sleep for about three hours now. "We paid a graft fee of 975 Nixons to Ice XI to delivuh' dey're equipment, and we were supposed to get a little over five t'ousand back. We haven't gotten anything back because you said dey're check bounced."

"Yes, that's true," The Professor said. "But really, don't you think the little death viewing ports I've put in my design of the Hyperkrill tank would be delightful?"

"I'm sure it would be, Professuh, but it would still cost too much money." Hermes said flatly.

The Professor stood silently for a moment, perhaps still ruminating on just how much the cost of training a new bureaucrat would be. Finally, he erased the board that contained a lovely little doodle of Mom being torn in half by two Hyperkrill and he slammed a fist down on the table. The rather miniscule force of the impact failed to wake up the tired employees in his stead.

"Alright then, we'll get our money back." The Professor said, "One way or another…" he added ominously, a light chuckle beginning to permeate his voice.

_"Forced entry and robbery of one of de' most powerful corporations on de' planet…" _Hermes thought as his boss raised a gale of mad laughter that rang out in the meeting hall like the bells of Hell themselves._ "…At least it's better than de' poisoned wig idea."_

_

* * *

_

The gear had been packed almost instantly. Fry and Bender had even managed to help out a bit. They were back in the giant depot, ready to board a giant train to the objective currently located in the capital city of Ice XI. The Forman had hand picked twelve acolytes for this mission, and already they looked like they'd seen the fires of Hell. Fry and Bender showed less fear, but only because they had gotten rather good at containing it. Leela picked up her pack and turned to the two of them.

"Gentlemen, I'm not going to lie to you. This is a very dangerous assignment."

"Really? If those guy's didn't look like they were about to ralph, I'd have thought we were going to Disneyland."

A single murderous look from Leela was all the force needed to clamp Bender's vocalizer to the roof of his fuel intake port. Fry didn't say anything, all he needed was a little reassurance from Leela and he could run all day and night. He was somewhat like the Energizer bunny, only without the pink fur and drum.

"My students. Today we take back what is rightfully ours. Today we strike the invaders and drive them off of our planet for good. The journey will be long. But it will be well worth it. We will have our victory today. " The Forman was giving a rousing paragraph speech, despite the fact that there was no dramatic intonation in his voice. Although it did seem to have the desired effect, and the students could be seen pumping fists in the air, shouting affirmatives, and generally acting like teenagers at a high school football game. After that history-making moment, they all piled into the egg train. The Forman knew better than Leela how to work the controls, not to mention traverse tracks that were covered in more than a foot of snow, so he was in the pilot's seat this time. Leela sat next to Fry, who was trying to control his nervousness. Leela looked at him, and said only one thing:

"Ready?"

Fry knew just what to say in return:

"Yup."

And off they went into oblivion, with Bender starting a rousing rendition of "The Near Future" as they went.

* * *

**Author's Note: **And so the stage is set for the final battle between good and evil, or at least as good or evil as you can get in Futurama.

Comment me, plz.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Lower Manhattan had never stood taller or prouder than it did in the waning years of the 30th Century. Buildings had grown to twice the size of their counterparts in the past, aided by ingenious new methods of construction and the speed of their gigantic robotic builders. The only thing stopping them from building higher were the hundreds upon hundreds of decaying foundations laying just underneath the cities streets, which surprisingly weren't the best thing to build multilevel skyscrapers on. They were quite useful, however, to the hastily assembled crack team poised to break in to the central headquarters of MomCorp who were loitering nervously in an unmarked hovertruck across the street from the main entrance.

The plan was simple, at least by Farnsworth's standards. They would sneak into the lobby using the upper sewer system (much to Amy's dismay). With any luck the mutant guards below the surface would have nodded off by now, so the tunnels would most likely be unguarded. From the lobby they would sneak up to the data transmitter stored up on the eighty-seventh floor. Farnsworth, using the code lengthener programmed specially for this occasion, would steal back the money that belonged to his company. The virus would then rewrite all of MomCorp's records giving the illusion that no money had been lost. With any luck they would be back at Planet Express in time for Leno.

All of this would have gotten off to a smooth start if not for Zoidberg's reluctance to wear the color black.

"Zoidberg, for God's sake! Will you at least put on the damn hat!" Farnsworth yelled, attempting to pull a small black stocking cap over the crustacean's greasy head. Zoidberg instantaneously drew back from Farnsworth's bony fingers.

"Never, it clashes too much with my rosy exterior!" He scuttled backwards, avoiding another attempt at being restrained by Hermes and Amy. After several minutes of general disarray Zoidburg finally relented to wearing the hat, and the mission continued as normal. Farnsworth left the hovertruck first, creeping as slowly and stealthily as a one-hundred and sixty-eight year old man could over to a conveniently placed mailbox. Amy and Hermes followed behind him, with Zoidberg bringing up the rear.

MomCorp loomed in front of them, the darkness making it look somehow even more imposing than it would be in broad daylight. The front doors were nothing but a large black rectangle inside a slightly lighter rectangle reaching up into the sky. One would think that proper lighting would be essential in the running of a multiplanetary corporation, but apparently Mom had better things to spend her money on.

Hermes had brought along with him a small crowbar. Using it to pry open the sewer cover, the foursome slipped down into the dank underbelly of the New New York sewage system.

"Ugh! It smells like Zoidberg down here!" Amy grimaced, holding both hands to her face.

"I take offense to that!" The lobster creature started, but after he caught a breath of his own odor he quieted down.

"Quit yer' whinin', both of you. Professuh, I tink da' access hatch is dead ahead."

"Thank goodness. All this crawling around in filth and radioactive waste products, it's a wonder we haven't caught the plague yet!"

The access hatch was somewhat smaller than anticipated, and the next five minutes were spent squeezing through a pipe barely large enough to fit a Kysellian Marsh Walker. After that bit of unpleasantness, the group quietly made their way to the cargo elevators on the other side of the sub-basement. There were no guards, unusual for a corporation as big as Mom's. Perhaps she was out tonight and needed extra backup. Nevertheless, they kept a close watch on the shadows.

From the basement they reached the elevators, then went up the shaft to floor eighty-seven. Odd number for such an important function, Farnsworth thought. Round numbers were always better for hiding secret data recorders and the like. Oh well, who was he to argue with the frigid bitch harpy that he'd happily given his life's blood to for so many years.

The company had changed little in the years Farnsworth had been gone, or so it seemed. The corridors were the same off white and bathed in the same florescent glow, tiny data ports still glowed on the walls at every door frame, and the bleach that covered up the blood of interns sacrificed to the latest dimensional rift catastrophe was ever present in the nostrils. Still, it felt to Farnsworth that something had changed drastically. There was a new electricity present in the air unlike anything he'd felt in the time he'd worked for Mom. Maybe she was trying out a new electrostatic generator, who knew?

The long corridor to the data processing room finally ended in the form of a hulking grey door. Farnsworth produced an old, withered keycard and shoved it into the reader on the side of the door. He wasn't so sure that it still worked, but there was no time for negativity in this mission. Surprisingly enough, the door clicked open, and the team wasted no time getting inside.

The room was like a racquetball court mixed with the floor of the stock exchange. A large "C" shaped panel of glass cut a swath through the opposite wall in front of them, showing off the skyline of New New York. Machines spewing random numbers and old time ticker tape were everywhere, their cords reaching back to the giant cyclotron-like thing in the middle of the room. That thing was connected to a forest of fiber optic cables lining the ceiling, their pulses and contractions sending a hum through the entire room. There was also a small table-its purpose unimportant in the grand scheme of things-that held outdated equipment and a small box of donuts for the morning cleaning crew.

Farnsworth headed for the cyclotron, stepping over the ticker tape spouting robots and sputtering muffled obscenities about the waste of it all. The others followed, their eyes scanning the floor for hidden alarms or robot guards. Zoidberg made a beeline for the donut box, his stomach overtaking his common sense like usual. Farnsworth produced his code, contained in a small and rather primitive jump drive. No programmer this side of Chicago would see something like this coming, a powerful and virtually undetectable virus being packed into a device this small.

Farnsworth's lengthy ego trip was interrupted by Hermes: "Hate to rush you, Professuh, but we've got a small problem."

He pointed to a small oval cubbyhole on the wall, inside of which was a gleaming lens. Hermes had spotted a security camera.

Farnsworth merely grumbled. "Not a problem. Amy!"

"On it." She responded instantly, hoping to quite down her boss before they took notice. She crept over to the camera, keeping as flat against the wall as she possibly could to avoid the gaze of their little peeping Tom. Reaching into her pocket, she drew out a small laser lipstick applier and pointed it sideways at the camera. A small pink blast hit the lens at just the right angle, cracking it and sending smoke pouring out of the new hole to the compartment behind it. The film inside was oxidizing, and soon every record of their little jaunt here would be gone. The camera's remains would also look fabulous as a summer.

Farnsworth's code was in place. The account had been rather easy to crack, almost like someone had been expecting them. Someone probably was, but oh well. At least he had what was rightfully his; at least he had his sweet, sweet money, which was currently being transferred to a safe Planet Express account (the word "safe" meaning "hidden, semi-legal and offworld") somewhere in the Vega Arcturus system. That should teach Mom a little important fact, he thought: don't mess with Hubert J. Farnsworth.

They finished up and left quickly. Zoidberg trailing behind them full and in good spirits. The cleaning crew would arrive the next morning to find nothing amiss or out of the ordinary… until they opened their donut box.

* * *

The exact name of Ice XI's capital city is unknown to most foreigners, though there have been several educated guesses and translations thrown around in academic circles with no effect on the layperson whatsoever. The original Iceixican is unspeakable in Modern English, translating out to nothing more than a few random consonants and a scant vowel or three that wouldn't look out of place in a poorly written fanfiction or fictional universe. The transliteration is somewhat closer, but not by much. The word _Sechrovoroden _being taken from the much longer superlative meaning "coldest city". Of course the word is perhaps far too long for any Earthican to memorize, much less spell properly, so Fry had simply taken to calling the city "Cold Town".

"Fry, for God's sake, are you trying to get us found out?" Leela hissed, pulling him behind a snowdrift. Fry, laughing wildly at the spectacle of Bender trying to keep himself upright on the icy path he was currently flailing over. Robots did not take particularly well to the elements, as several generations of failed weather modifications and anti-freeze recalls could attest to. Bender grumbled another Spanish expletive and fell over again.

"Like they could ever get to us! This city's frozen over like something outta' Dante!"

"We Iceixicans take well to the cold." The Forman said, he and his acolytes gliding over the ice effortlessly. "To us the snow is sacred. Everything must be kept in balance with it or else the world will suffer."

"So falling all over yourself is considered sacred?" Leela asked, her boots slipping out from underneath her as if on cue, "Seems like a strange way to show religious solidarity."

"Come. We must get out of the open. We have barely reached the third ring of the city. The palace is located in ring one."

The group picked themselves up and continued on down the strange paved ice avenue. The city was built as a series of concentric circles, like a bull's-eye radiating out from the palace in the center. The zones between them, getting larger as the rings moved outward from the palace, were numbered from one to fourteen. However, in an unlikely move by the city planner's, the ring numbering went backward. The first ring was the palace center, and the fourteenth was the outer tunnels and warrens. The Forman's explanation of their attack had consisted of this monologue. Leela understood well enough, Fry merely agreed with her and left it at that.

The streets were completely deserted inside this third ring. Outside of the beautifully carved ice avenue there were only a few small warrens and the occasional warren-shop. A few of them had even caved in under the combined pressures of the invasion and lack of maintenance. Above them was the dome of the giant cave they'd entered, its top completely shattered to accommodate now forgotten shock troopers. At their feet were chunks of the majestic ceiling, their pictures once precariously inscribed on them hacked to bits by laser saws.

"It is sad. I know." The Forman said, voicing the mentalities of his alien comrades. "All we have built lies in ruin."

"We'll put a stop to it. We promise." Leela put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Iceixicans were not ones for displays of affection, but it was a welcome gesture.

"Alright, let's follow this street a little further into the city center." Leela said in her take charge manner, "Then we'll split up, sending three strike teams in zig-zag patterns into the business districts, and-"

The rest of her words were drowned out by several loud explosions and the screams of Fry, Bender, and the rest of the small group.

* * *

The mission had been a success, their money was safe, and they were about to pull into the Planet Express garage safe and sound.

So why did she suspect something was about to go wrong?

Amy Wong was not built to run on instinct, but she did have a fair amount of common sense, despite popular opinion. The camera should have sent out an alarm when she deactivated it, the most heavily guarded floor in the MomCorp complex should have had extra security, and Farnsworth's keycard should have gotten him disintegrated down to the lowest molecular order. Or maybe she was just being paranoid.

They were almost home now. Maybe they had gotten off scot free, and they'd have no repercussions past the crimes of burglary and fraud weighing down their consciences. Oh well, at least she'd have something to write to her parents and Kif about.

"The mission was a complete success!" Hermes beamed as they trekked into the garage.

"Our money is safe!" Farnsworth marveled as he cut the ignition and they stepped out of the hover truck.

"We're back in the Planet Express garage…" Zoidburg began, but before he could finish his jovial exclamation, there was a loud cracking noise followed by the repeat of that sound five hundred times over.

The group looked up past the railing at five hundred identical Mom's Friendly Robot Company Anti-Theft and Corporate Protection Kill Drones, each one armed with rather dangerous looking tri-barreled laser cannons with long range tracking missiles, auto-targeting targeting systems, and cushioned plexiglas stocks to avoid damage to the user. All five hundred of them were currently pointed at Farnsworth's shiny head.

"PROFESSOR HUBERT J. FARNSWORTH." One of them barked in a staccato tone usually reserved for spinster schoolteachers. "YOU HAVE BEEN CHARGED WITH ATTEMPTED FRAUD AND BURGLARY, WITH THE ADDITIONAL CRIME OF INVASION OF MOMCORP PROPERTY. THE SENTENCE IS GUILTY. COME WITH US OR BE ANNIHILATED."

The kill drone continued on after that, but Amy didn't hear it. They'd been caught semi red handed by an independent police organization headed by a corrupt corporate monarch. In New New York, that may as well have been a death sentence. At least she was right, there was a good reason to be paranoid after all.

* * *

Leela never overlooked a good reason to be paranoid, and even now in the middle of a firefight, that was no exception. It seemed like these conveniently placed attack bots had magically sprung up out of nowhere, almost like someone had been expecting them.

"Big boots! Robot in need of assistant! Mayday, mayday!"

Leela whirled around to catch a look at Bender in the vice grip of one of his many times removed cousins. That cousin was currently shouting orders to the rest of his squadron to pacify the area and secure all hostiles, along with other phrases from robot speech. Leela was a hostile, alright, and she wasn't about to go down without a fight.

Suddenly, a large metal hand struck her on the back of the head. Stars exploded around her field of vision and she tumbled into the snow. _"Funny"_, she thought as she watched the world fade to gray, and then black, _"I didn't know kill bots could fight dirty." _

_

* * *

_

A small crowd had gathered to watch the Planet Express crew being taken away in the belly of a MomCorp Arrest Transfer cruiser. Some of them shouted expletives, some laughed, and others just stood and stared as if their dirty looks could magically assign them the moniker of "criminal". Amy felt their looks, and turned away. Hermes and Zoidberg did the same, only Zoidberg still made a muted attempt to catch some of the fruit thrown at him. Farnsworth said nothing to them once they were padlocked in the cruisers holding cell, he merely clammed up and took up a seat at the back. The entire scene was over within twenty minutes. The crowd dispersed afterwards.

* * *

Fry was the first to wake up. His mind flashed back to exactly what had happened. First Leela had gotten knocked out by that robot guy, then he'd been picked up by the leg, deemed a "nonthreat"-whatever that was- and was unceremoniously dropped back into the snow, then Bender had gotten his arms torn off, then… nothing.

He sat up, his jacket mysteriously missing. Around him were the still slumbering bodies of his comrades, to the far side of the room they were in was the disembodied body and head of his robotic friend, and in front of him was a row of threatening iron bars.

Fry had a sneaking suspicion that they were in serious trouble.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Yet another cliffhanger! I'm so evil.

Hope you enjoy this chapter, it almost didn't get out this week. Computer went on the fritz, but it's okay now.

Next chapter is second to last, or not. You really can't tell with me.

Comment ;)


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Give or take a few milliseconds, the MomCorp cruiser arrived downtown within the forty minutes allotted by MomCorp Traffic Control. The police station was deserted, but they had no problem in booking the miscreants dropped on their doorstep. From there they dropped into the bowels of the New New York legal system, and were swept through the booking departments like rubbish. The cell blocks were dank, dirty, and surprisingly enough, deserted. Apparently Mom had wanted them to be safe enough from being torn to pieces tonight, but still uncomfortable enough to remind them that they were essentially owls caught in owl traps.

They were unceremoniously shoved into a small cell on the far side of the large room. Farnsworth chose the softest part of the granite flooring to rest on, still not saying anything to the group around him. It was rather amazing really; Farnsworth hadn't gone this long in a crisis without bursting into an uncontrollable old man fury, and to see him truly humbled and looking his age was a rather surreal experience.

Zoidberg was the first to ask the question on everyone's minds: "So when do we get out of here already?"

Hermes opened his mouth to deliver an insult laden rebuttal, but he couldn't gather up the strength to do so. Amy decided to finish for him.

"We're prisoners Zoidberg, spluh," she said, trying to retain her usual West Martian attitude, "We're stuck here until she lets us out."

"Not to mention whatever the hell she's going to do to Fry, Leela, and Bender." Hermes shuddered, suddenly remembering their comrades lost in space.

"Right… So what now?" Amy asked.

No one in the cell had an answer for that question, and things were silent for quite a while. Hermes and Amy made themselves comfortable, while Zoidberg busied himself with the inspection of some rather delicious looking lichen growing in the corner. Outside their cell window, the night dragged on.

* * *

Mom didn't usually feel any reason to gloat about her success, but today was a splendid exception. Everything was going exactly to plan, despite the best efforts of Farnsworth's puke gobblers and her own brood of sniveling, dimwitted jackanapes. Soon they would be rocketing away from this tiny little orb, looking back only to make sure that it cracked into a million little pieces. And to top it all off, Farnsworth's little crew would have the best seat in the house.

"So… What do we have here?" she said, holding a lit cigarette in her hand. "Farnsworth's band of morons come to deliver some third-rate crap?"

"Can the dramatics, Mom. We know what you're up to," Leela said.

"Really, well no crap," Mom retorted, her three sons snickering behind them. "Why do you think I locked you in that little cell? Can't have you waltzing around free space telling everyone about my plans."

"Can you let us go if we promise not to tell?" Fry added helpfully.

"Sorry, but no. Walt!"

"Yes, mother." Walt produced a small remote and passed it along to his mother. Mom pushed a small button on top of it. Two seconds later Fry fell flat on his face, convulsing and screeching horribly. Mom could only laugh at such a pathetic sight.

"Just a little demonstration," Mom gloated, "My boys had these installed when you were passed out. Hope they're not too invasive."

"Actually, mine sort of itches a little." Fry said weakly from the floor.

Another shock and Fry curled up once again into a small red ball. Mom ignored him and walked over to the far wall to motion at a small grey patch mounted on it. Walt dimmed the lights, and Larry started up a conveniently placed projector. A single image of Ice XI from above sprang into view, accompanied by a tracking image of the asteroid orbiting it.

"Alright, here's the plan, ass weevils:" Mom started, in her usual tone. "We started out on this crap rock to mine every last bit of ice out from under these idiots." She gestured to the Iceixicans behind Fry and Leela, who looked somewhat relieved that they'd been left out of the conversation until now. "That went okay for a while, with one exception…"

"It hurt all those ice people, Mommy?" Ignar asked.

Everyone in the room winced as Ignar took a rather brutal slap across the face and crumpled to the floor. Mom ignored his whimpering and continued unabated. "It was too damn slow! Out of every glacier we ground up, we got less than half the ice back from it! I needed a solution that would get the maximum amount of payoff from the minimum amount of effort!"

"Like college students trying to write their midterm?" Bender asked.

"Exactly! So then I though to myself: 'Alright, Mom. How can you punch this planet in the gut so hard that it'll cough up all its sweet, sweet ice?' I had our top scientists go over every possible solution, work out every possible scenario. When they said it was impossible, I had them fired and hired new scientists! After they said it was impossible, I had them fired and hired new people to do the firing! Then I was looking at this stupid model Larry built of the comet…" She picked up what looked like a large grey lump from a desk in the corner of the room.

"Wonderful craftsmanship, half-wit!" She threw it with great force at her son's head. It bounced off uneventfully, with no complaint from him other than a small whimper.

"And that gave me a wonderful idea: just crash the stupid comet into the stupid planet and all the stupid ice would break into little chunks! From there we'd send it by wormhole to our refineries, and bam!" She slammed the desk with a flabby, wrinkled fist, "We've got free water, baby!"

"Nice plan, Mom," Leela said brazenly from their cage. "Too bad it won't work."

"Yeah, water's the cheapest thing you can buy!" Bender's head chimed in. "We're practically swimming in it! Proverbially, of course."

"Oh my, well that's something I simply didn't plan for," Mom said, taking on her usual public persona of befuddled old maid. It didn't last long.

"Walt! How many water-producing planets are there?" She screeched.

"Seventeen, mother. Counting this one." Walt replied.

"That's right. And who owns those planets?"

"You do, mother." Walt replied again.

"So you invaded an entire planet just to harvest a resource that anyone has access to just so you could sell that water like you would usually?" Fry said, scratching his head in a perplexed manner. "Doesn't seem like good business sense."

"That's the beauty of it, Carrot Top! With this frozen snot stain gone, I've got this entire half of the galaxy wound around my little finger. I can turn production on and off like a faucet. Nobody's going to argue 'fair trade' when they're dying of thirst."

"And as an added bonus," she produced a small vial filled with Iceixican water. "With this stuff I've got a whole new market! I'm not sure how it works yet, but I'm sure we'll think of something."

At that point, Mom started up with her evil laugh. It filled the entire room and seemed to penetrate everything it touched. Her sons joined in, their evil laughter somewhat unrefined and less finely-tuned, but still chilling nonetheless.

"Enough!" the room fell silent abruptly. "We've got work to do. Walt!"

"Yes, mother." Walt took over the proceedings from here.

"You'll be kept here until the comet reaches the upper atmosphere of the planet. We'll be shoving off in a few hours before it hits, so do try to make yourselves comfortable." he added a low, evil chuckle to accent his evility.

"Just to ease my mind, Walt," Leela added with only a hint of respectability in her voice. "what happened to our ship?"

"No need to worry about it, my dear. We've had it sent to the repair bay in one of the lower warrens. In fact," he mock checked his watch. "I believe they've finished repairing it by now. Too bad you won't need it."

Another chuckle escaped his lips, followed by the less threatening chuckles of his two younger brothers.

"What about our heating equipment?"

"Oh, that's been a big help to us indeed," Walt said. "We've been using it to flood the lower levels."

The Iceixicans let out gasps, cries of anger, and various other sighs of disapproval.

"It turns out once you start the process of melting, it really doesn't take that long. So far we've flooded everything below the main palace."

"You think you've won, haven't you?" Leela was mad now. Her eye had narrowed dangerously down to a slit. She hadn't lost her cool during this entire wretched lecture, but with Walt's oily tone burrowing into her eardrums she was getting rather close. "You think we're going down without a fight? Well think again, momma's boy! We've got a little trump card of our own, and his name is Captain Zapp…"

"Brannigan." Walt finished, watching with great pleasure as Leela's look of determination melted into something resembling despair mixed with old gravy. "We know. We picked up his flagship trying to send a message to the DOOP fleet. It's a good thing he put out a cancellation shortly afterwards, or who knows what might have happened with that false alarm."

"But… How…"

"We hacked his communications, a rather easy task considering his intelligence. His flagship de-orbited over the northern glaciers. He wasn't on board."

"Our trump… How did you…"

"We've got him tied up here. Would you like to talk with him?"

Leela looked at Walt with a rather murderous glint in her eye.

"Let me see him," she said murderously.

Walt motioned to his siblings, who proceeded to wheel in a small cage. Walt stepped over to the cage and, rather unceremoniously, flipped up the tarp that covered it. Beneath that tarp were two humanoids wearing the standard uniform of the DOOP navy. One was green, froglike, and rather squishy looking; the other was human, blonde, and also rather squishy looking. They were both blindfolded, a good thing considering Leela was dangerously close to having a mental lapse. Zapp Brannigan telling randy jokes and commenting on her luscious figure would only serve to provoke such a response.

"I can see this reunion is rather touching. I'll leave you all to chat..."

Walt stepped out of the room, his brothers following behind snickering and thumbing their noses at the Iceixicans.

The room's door shut with a bang, everything went deadly silent. Nobody said or did anything for a few seconds. Leela walked over to the bench welded to the wall, sat down, and put her hands over her face. Fry didn't know what to do. Leela was always the person who came up with plans, but now their plan had failed. Should he comfort her? Put a hand on her shoulder? Do anything other than stand there like an idiot? These thoughts were broken into pieces by a small rasping sound. The sound was coming from his captain.

And that's when it hit him. Leela was crying.

And that's when it hit him again. They had no way off the planet.

And that's when it hit him a third time. They were all going to die.

"_Oh sure, now you get it." _His brain commented.

* * *

Meanwhile, back in prison, Professor Farnsworth was still no closer to unlocking the secret of why his plan had failed. Little did he know that his starship captain, over forty light years away and cowering in a jail cell, was facing the same predicament.

Farnsworth was no stranger to failure. It could even be said that they were close acquaintances that said "good morrow" when they passed each other in the street, or ones that would share a meal at a restaurant every so often where they would talk about how things were going and what the kids were up to and so forth. He'd met failure so many times over the years that he'd thought of failure until now as a close personal friend. Of course, failure can never really be anything more than an acquaintance, which proved the old adage "Failure is a friend when you miss him, and an acquaintance when your house burns down."

"Professuh?" Hermes said. Professor Farnsworth looked up.

"I really don't need to tell you dis', but…" he looked around. "We're in really deep trouble."

Farnsworth said nothing. "I know." He said.

"I can't believe Mom caught us." Amy said despairingly from the other side of the cell. "We were so careful."

"Oh my, yes. Extremely careful." Farnsworth hung his head. "But it seems Mom was one step ahead of us in the care department."

At this point, Zoidberg had ingested everything edible in the cell, and was currently working on climbing up the walls to wrench out a few last scrumptious moss bits from the old brickwork. As he climbed, he failed to notice the nails to the bench on which he stood were loosening. Hermes alerted Farnsworth to this fact, and he decided to watch. Zoidberg hurting himself was always a wonderful source of comedy.

"So, we meet again, little piece of moss." Zoidberg said determinedly as he eyed a tiny morsel cowering on a high ledge. "It's too late to beg for mercy, for soon you will be in broken down one of the many stomachs of Dr. Zoidbraaaaaagh!"

The screws had finally given way, sending Zoidberg toppling to the floor in a shower of brick and mortar. Farnsworth laughed, but it was a half-laugh and didn't really do much to lift him out of his doldrums. Zoidberg rose from his brick coffin and began to dust himself off, brushing away lint, cobwebs and copper wiring…

Farnsworth suddenly had a rush of inspiration.

"Zoidberg, you brilliant idiot!" He marveled. "you've given me a wonderful idea!"

"We should hurt ourselves and claim police brutality?" Hermes asked.

"No, No! I mean this!" He removed a strip of copper wiring wound around Zoidberg's ankle. "We can use this strip of copper wiring to reprogram one of the robot guards!"

"Without any coding software? Impossible!" Hermes grumbled.

"When you're a scientist, nothing's impossible!" Farnsworth said, the old maniacal glint returning to his cataract laden eyes. He wound the copper wiring into a long stick, wrapping the other end around his hand.

"There! All I need now is a source of electricity..."

"There! The lightbulb!" Amy pointed to the tiny bulb glowing weakly above them like an ember.

"Excellent, now we call over one of the guards and stick him in the data port with this! I'll need someone to hold the wire in the light socket…"

"Zoidberg." Amy and Hermes said at the same time. Zoidberg objected, but was silenced by the promise of the all you could eat buffet the next time the crew went out for dinner.

"Excuse me! Guard!" Farnsworth called out. The guard responded almost immediately, his chassis decked out in what could only be called a raygun Gothic nightmare.

"What?" his mechanized tone was gruff and domineering, much like a regular prison guard.

"Uh… He pinched me!" Farnsworth motioned to Hermes. Hermes played along.

"What, I didn't!"

"You most certainly did! I have the bruise to prove it!"

"Oh please, it didn't leave a bruise you big baby!"

"Aha! So you admit it!"

"Gentlemen!" The guard said, restoring order. "I have orders to keep you dirty thieves in line. You are going to be prosecuted in short order tomorrow by a lower court judge, from which you will most certainly be going to prison. Can you please hold off on making your lives worse than they are already going to get?"

"Yes, sir." Farnsworth and Hermes mock complied.

"Good, anything else I need to worry about?" the guard asked.

"Oh nothing, nothing at all." Farnsworth said, hoping that the guard wouldn't notice that his data port had been hardwired to accept a foreign object. The guard was just about to leave, when-

"Now, Zoidberg!"

Zoidberg threw the switch, sending twelve thousand volts coursing through the guard and his carapace. The guard fell to the floor, an impressive feat considering he was on wheels. Farnsworth immediately took the opportunity to jimmy open his control panel. After a hard reboot, Farnsworth manually overrode the guard's commands and input his own.

"Release prisoners in Cell 14-B." Farnsworth said for the sake of some unseen audience.

"Re-release… pris-pris-prisoners." the guard complied.

A few moments later, Hermes, Amy, Zoidberg, and Professor Farnsworth were walking towards the exit. The guard was calling out to them.

"Good night! Hope that trial goes okay!"

"I'm sure it will!" Farnsworth called back. He'd reprogrammed the guard to be more complacent. Hopefully someone would notice.

"So what now?" Hermes said, his smile returning despite the fact that they'd just broken out of jail.

"I say we go to the buffet! They've got this little Hawaiian place uptown a few blocks." Zoidberg said hopefully.

Hermes and Amy looked at Farnsworth. His senior's discount would be paying for their meal, so it was his decision. Farnsworth ruminated over the cost of Zoidburg being happy, and then he said:

"Oh what the hell, he's earned it."

And off they went.

* * *

Philip J. Fry was no therapist, but to him it was an easy enough profession. The only major components of it were sitting, listening to people talk, asking "how did that make you feel?" every so often, and collecting a massive amount of money at the end.

This, however, was different. He wasn't just consoling some person, this was Leela. Everybody saw Leela as the space rock of Gibraltar, unmoving and unable to be hurt by anything. But Fry knew there was a sensitive side to her, the side that didn't like kicking people or blasting people with lasers. Fry had only seen that side when Leela talked about her parents. He had to bring that side out now.

"L-Leela?" Fry said, getting off to a good start by sitting down beside her. "Are you okay?"

No answer. Leela kept her back turned to him.

"Leela, I'm not that bright, but I know we're in a lot of trouble here. And I know that we had a plan and it didn't work. I mean, Mom really had her bases covered with that one. She-"

Fry realized that he was heading down the wrong path, and backtracked a little.

"Look. I'm not really the guy that can think much. Usually I try not to think too much because then I get distracted by some really tiny detail and I focus on that while the company building burns down. Remember that, Leela?"

He was sure she remembered. It was the time he'd tried to help them build a particle accelerator for the company. He'd gotten too enthralled in working on the accelerator's paneling that he didn't watch were he was going long enough to avoid missing the blowtorch inconveniently lying right next to Bender's illegal fireworks drawer. Leela had taken the rap on that one, and Fry had made it up to her by taking her out to dinner. That was the standard agreed upon apology for almost blowing up Planet Express.

Leela still hadn't said anything, but Fry kept talking.

"I know failure isn't really a big thing for you. Me? It's my… uh… raisin something. But you know what happens when you fail?

Leela shook her head no. That was progress. At least he'd gotten something out of her.

"It means you can start all over again, and maybe this time you won't screw up." Fry put a hand on her shoulder, hoping she wouldn't try to break his fingers. "It means you can try again, and make up a new plan. One that works better than the old one. Failure isn't the end of something; it just means you've blown something up again."

Leela sat up a little. Good, Fry thought, just a little more…

"So c'mon, let's make a new plan. Maybe we'll blow something up this time, who knows?"

Leela turned around. She still hadn't said anything. Fry was about to close his argument when Leela enveloped him in a rather suffocating hug.

"Thanks, Fry." She said.

"No problem." Fry replied, trying hard not to pass out.

They decoupled, and an awkward pause set in. "So." Fry said, "Got a plan?"

Leela smiled. "Just one."

* * *

Within several minutes, the iron bars of their cages were bent and the entire group had been freed. Bender had been put out of commission due to his disembodied state, so the process took much longer. Luckily for them, iron didn't take well to the cold of Ice XI.

"Alright, we need to find a map of this place and find whatever Mom's using to drag the comet out of orbit." Leela said, untying Kif from his chair.

"Good enough for me, that old bat cost me a lotta' bending!" Bender said, reattaching his head to his neck.

"Glad to hear it. Alright, let's move out!"

"Wait. What about him?" The Forman pointed to Brannigan, whom Leela had conveniently left tied up.

"Oh, right. We'll take him along too."

A few minutes later the room was deserted, and the group was silently making its way down the south anterior corridor. Well, almost silently.

"Oh, shut up," Leela said, kicking Brannigan in the side. "It's only a mile or two."

Brannigan groaned as he was dragged on by Leela. This wasn't what he'd had in mind when he said he'd wanted to be tied up.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Only one more chapter! And an epilogue! Maybe! I don't know!

Comment!


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

A very long and very thin bridge of ice was the only thing separating Philip J. Fry from a very precipitous and very short drop down a very long shaft into the very flooded central caverns of Ice XI's capital city. To say that he was very terrified would be an understatement.

"Fry, it's alright," Leela said convincingly. "It's only a few more steps." Her cajoling had managed to get Fry halfway across the bridge, but her efforts had failed magnificently when he'd looked down at the transparent ice underneath his feet. Now with the rest of the group waiting impatiently on the other side he was standing stiff as a board as if waiting for the foundation underneath him to fracture, dropping him down the dark and dismal shaft mentioned earlier.

"…M-maybe you should g-go on w-w-without m-me, Leela." Fry gulped, resisting the urge to look down again into the abyss. "I don't think I can make it."

"Fry, c'mon." Leela said, stretching out a hand that was in no system of measurement anywhere near Fry's reach. "We'll get through this. I can help you across. You just have to trust me."

Fry gulped again. She was right, he needed to trust her. He lifted a single foot and placed it at least one nanometer ahead of his other one. It was progress, but it wasn't fast enough.

"Allow me to speed up the process, captain." Bender said, stepping out onto the bridge. A few seconds' later two grey blurs were jetting towards Fry, who was still concentrating on taking his next miniscule step. Like pythons they wrapped around the squirming human, dragging him with great effort across the bridge. Fry wheeled as fast as he possibly could towards the other side of the cavern, but he was simply no match for a high powered robotic motor. Slowly but surely, he was reeled in like a space trout.

"Leela! Helpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelp-" his panic faded when he realized he was back on solid turf, or what passed for solid turf on Ice XI. His elation didn't last for long.

"Yeah, yeah. Good old terra firma." Bender grumbled, once again dumping his friend on the ground, "Now let's get going. Maybe this palace has some loot I can stea-" he suddenly remembered The Forman was standing next to him,"borrow." He finished, shuffling off before his ambitions revealed themselves again. Leela helped Fry up, and they started walking down the corridor to the palace.

Neither of them noticed the bridge behind them collapse into a thousand pieces and tumble into the blackness down below.

* * *

Three more hours and it would be all over. So much the better, Walt thought, as he packed up yet another set of crystals that belonged to the royal family. The palace had been thoroughly and meticulously ransacked in the first days of the invasion. Anything with sufficient value had been brought to Mom for appraisal. The rest had been divided amongst him and his three brothers or incinerated.

Walt packed another set of crystals into the large suitcase his mother had thrown at him, thankfully missing his already battered face. He stuffed another set of ice crystals into the side pockets, their glow radiating out of the suitcase like a cartoon pirate's chest. His job nearly complete, he sat down on a meticulously crafted ice stool he'd pushed into his room. It wasn't strong enough to support a human's weight, and instantly a thousand spider web cracks spread across its surface. He quickly stood up again, kicking it underneath the ice bed where he hoped no one would see it.

He tried not to think about where these crystals were headed. Off to some laboratory to be analyzed or torn apart by a bunch of egg headed mini-Farnsworths in matching coats. It wasn't fair. He and his brothers had gathered them up, wrenched them from statuary and pried them from the hands of royalty. Why couldn't they keep a single jewel for themselves? Of course Ignar was too stupid to really appreciate them, and Larry was too much of a novice to handle this sort of wealth.

What harm could come from swiping one jewel?

Walt's hand moved into the suitcase. His thin fingers wrapped around one crystal, the smallest of the bunch he'd been given to pack. He tried to remember what Mother told him: _"…if I find a single crystal missing when we get back…". _He remembered years of painful slaps and belittlement, all leading up to this one moment. He could get away with it, he thought. Mother trusted him. She'd search Larry or Ignar first, leaving him time to sell the crystal before she got suspicious. Besides, those little sword toppers on the two statues outside looked almost exactly like these…

"All set to go?" A voice asked curiously from behind him.

"Didn't mother ever teach you to knock?" Walt snapped, withdrawing his hand from the suitcase quickly. He turned to see his brother Larry standing in the doorway, an apologetic look painted across his pathetic face.

"Sorry, Walt," he said, his frame drooping ever so slightly. "Mom sent me to pick you up."

"Terrific." Walt closed his suitcase, the light from the crystals extinguishing as the lid closed on them. "Have you seen Ignar?"

"No, have you?"

"If I'd seen him, then why would I ask you?" Walt responded angrily, sending a slap across his younger brother's face. Larry recoiled, and Walt pushed him out of the way so he could exit the room. Larry followed two paces behind him.

"So, do you think Mom will let us watch the planet's collapse?" Larry asked, trying to smooth things over.

"Why would she? It's just a ball of ice and rock. You heard what she said."

Larry seemed taken aback by this statement. "Sorry Walt, but we're imploding an entire populated planet to get some water. I think just it's sort of a big deal, that's all."

Walt stopped. Apparently he didn't like what he'd just heard.

"'Sort of a big deal?'" He said, his face contorted into a sneer. "That's what you think? You think the ability to destroy a planet means anything nowadays? This is the 31st century, man, wake up! This company trades in every city on every planet in almost every quadrant in the galaxy, our net income would make the great Andrew Carnegie vomit with rage, we have shareholders that don't even have a corporeal form in this dimension! And you stand there and tell me that destroying one piddling little icicle of a planet is something everyone should stop and pay attention to? We do these types of things every single day, and no one pays attention because no one cares. It's not important to them; it's just something that happened on some faraway little dust ball. To the modern consumer life is cheap, and the consumer is always right."

"But all those people in the under city are…"

"Oh come off it, I made that up just to rattle that Cyclops girl. She seemed like the type who gets in a tizzy every time a minority gets shot. What was her name, Lola?"

"Leela." His brother corrected.

"Never mind that! The point is that no one cares what we do as long as they get their daily bread. If we pay the water bill on our half of the galaxy, then no one comes to our doorstep carrying pitchforks and torches. We've got full lease on whatever part of this galaxy gives us the most profit, and when we're done we bulldoze it and build a space mall on the rubble. Got that?"

"But-"

"No buts! If we stopped and worried about every single toe we stepped on, we'd get our throats slit. It's survival of the fittest in this neck of the woods, my dear Larry. You'd best remember that."

"Sure, okay." Larry looked somewhat dejected. Walt felt rather pleased with himself, usually it took a lot more evil speeches to bring his brother down from his little fairy's perch. He was getting better, just like mother always said he would.

Suddenly, a rather large number of alarms went off. They signified an intrusion into the palace grounds. It seemed that their little detachment of prisoners had escaped captivity.

"I'll go get Mom. She'll know what to do." Larry was about to speed off, but Walt grabbed him by the collar.

"_I'll_ go get Mom. You find Ignar and rally the troops." Walt wasn't about to let his brother mess things up. To crush these dissidents, Mother would need someone who could direct and kowtow with style. Someone like him.

* * *

The central palace was located three more bridges inward from the bridge Fry had stalled on. The palace grounds were located on the small rings in between these massive spans across the gigantic cavern that marked the inner city. They were very beautiful, or at least they had been until the invasion. Now they looked like a cross between a cubist's nightmare and a stadium that had recently been host to a monster truck rally.

"Sad." Bender stated the obvious as the Iceixicans trekked across what once had been considered royal territory. They showed no grief, but Leela could tell that it was eating them up inside. She had a knack for spotting underlying emotions.

"Where do we go next?" Fry was looking out over the black cavern, apparently having been miraculously cured of his vertigo. The palace was barely visible in the gloom, shaped like a giant carrot wedged down into the earth. Leading to it was another bridge of clear ice that curved across the darkness like a giant convex mirror. Fry had a feeling that he could tackle this one, but before he could take a step he was waylaid by a glowing red projectile that rocketed out of the darkness like a bat out of Robot Hell.

"Mom found us! Hit the deck!" Bender dived behind the remnants of a statue commemorating the conquest of the lower caverns by the much beloved ruler Tojuktuk IV. That statue was currently missing its head and half of its torso.

"Stand together, people! We can beat these guys!" Leela stood defiantly on the edge of the bridge, holding the back of Fry's jacket so he wouldn't attempt to flee. Fry genuinely wished for the first time that Leela was like other women, the ones that ran from danger instead of spitting in its face and calling its mother an unemployed hussy.

There were a few more rockets launched from the other side of the bridge, followed by reports of the deafening variety. Nothing followed this assault, no storm troopers or gang of bloodthirsty mercenaries.

"Are they coming?" Fry asked nervously.

"No. Those were probably anti-personnel cannons." Leela replied, turning her back to the bridge. "Now how did they say to reprogram those? Was it 'red to blue, friend for you' or 'red to black, got your back'?"

While she was ruminating, Leela failed to notice the large hulking shape appearing from the darkness behind her. Fry noticed, however, and did everything he could short of screaming to get her attention. The only reason he didn't scream was that he had suddenly come down with a severe case of terror-induced laryngitis.

"Fry, what's wrong?" Leela shook herself out of her thoughts long enough to notice her friend's new pasty demeanor. Fry was still paralyzed, but the others were still eloquent enough to respond. They responded with weapons fire.

"Run!" The Forman called out. Fry was only happy to comply, and he slipped out of his jacket and ran. Leela followed him, but was blocked by a giant arm made of metal suddenly dropping from the sky. She looked up into the harsh metallic eyes of a very large destructor-bot, and screamed.

Fortunately for her, destructor-bots are rather slow. This gave Leela enough time to follow Fry's example and make a break for the garden. Behind the first bot three more bots appeared out of the darkness, all of them hulking and carrying huge weaponry. They moved slowly and in single file, their combined weight taxing the ice bridge to its limits. Leela aimed for the supports on the bridge, motioning to the others to do the same. For a moment nothing moved, except for Brannigan who still had no clue where he was.

Leela aimed first, the rest followed suit. One destructor-bot moved slightly closer, its sensors twisting violently as it sent signals to the bot's primitive brain. Destructor-bots weren't like other robots, mostly because they had the processing power of a rock crossed with an early 80s computer. As such, they only had two modes: find and smash. The group made its move. A hail of red streamers whizzed through the air and struck the first support, melting it and sending giant cracks through the bridge's structure.

The bots sensed something was wrong, and moved slightly faster towards the end of the bridge. The bridge had been half melted by then, the support rods underneath it stretched to the limits. The combined weight of the destructor-bots caused it to crack and send them toppling into the abyss. That left only one bot, who seemed much smarter than his unfortunate predecessors.

"Aim for the eyepiece!" Leela shouted, starting off another round of red bolts.

"Eyepiece nothing! Aim for his crotch!" Bender shouted back, and the next round of red bolts followed his advice. Fry had been given a laser pistol when they'd escaped the cell, and now he used it like he'd had it his entire life. Several of his shots missed, but a few managed to strike the bot dead in his red eye. He crumpled without complaint with a hundred more blasts to his torso, and for a moment the only sounds were the cooling of metal and a few shards of ice detaching from the bridge.

"Nice job, whoever got him in the processor." Leela pocketed her pistol. "Now let's find another way across to the palace."

"What do we do about him?" Fry pointed at the vanquished robot, "Mom's probably got more waiting for us on the other side."

"Good point. We've spent almost all our ammo taking this one down."

The Forman stepped closer to inspect the remains of the destructor-bot. "The hydraulics computers are still functioning. It only needs another robot's processor to make them work. Your robot friend could use this robot as another body."

Bender was busy with his cigar, but at the mention of "another body" he suddenly took an interest in the conversation.

"Ohhh no, no way! I know what happens when robots swap bodies! You get me to use this guy for a couple weeks, I try to get my old body back, and it's magically disappeared! My Adonisbot chassis is too valuable to pawn off to just _any_ chop shop."

The group was unmoved. And Bender spent the next several minutes fighting off the acolytes until he finally agreed to use the destructor-bot. When the process was complete, Bender's head had been jammed into the destructor's head node.

"Awesome! Now I'm just like Schwarzeneggerbot!" Bender's personality seemed to be fitting his new chassis perfectly. His head, not so much.

"Glad to hear it. Alright, let's move out."

The next ice bridge was a kilometer away. Getting to it would take half an hour at least. Fry hoped they still had enough time.

* * *

"Alright, let's get off this crapsicle. Walt!"

"Yes, mother?"

The entire family had strapped into the MomCorp Luxury Rocket, a top of the line space cruiser manufactured for personal use. This one had been taken from the premier production line and retrofitted for Mom's use. Walt didn't question the addition of several laser cannons, turbo boosters, and an unpleasant little torture chamber in the back host to a machine known only as "The Disembowlatron".

"Since you've been a good boy this trip, I've decided to let you pilot us home." Mom's voice took on an unnatural saccharine tone, like the kind she used in interviews. It made Walt rather uncomfortable.

"Thank you, mother." Walt said. Sometimes he enjoyed being the good son. At least then he got the perks when Mom was feeling generous.

"Mommy, shouldn't we let all the robots fly with us?" Ignar said, looking out over the vast royal landing field. The destructor-bot army had been recalled to the central palace to oversee the takeoff. They wouldn't be returning home.

"What for, you halfwit dimwit? The entire planet's coming back with us through the wormhole. We'll just sort them out in the wash, along with all the corpses!"

Mom laughed at this sentiment as if it were a joke. Ignar said nothing.

Suddenly a large booming sound filled the hanger; like a pop song from the early 21st century it was annoying and repetitive.

"Larry! What the crap's going on out there!"

Larry, who instantly regretted volunteering to be the one to pack up, looked out over the deserted field. The destructor-bots sensed it too, along with a rather disquieting noise on their respective frequencies. The noise was humming a rather annoying tune and making various references to hookers and Everclear.

There was a loud bang, and the doors to the hangar shattered. Through the portal stepped a figure that was the same size as the other destructors, but somehow much more terrifying. It was almost like a mentally unstable pyromaniac had just been given a lifetime supply of matches and accelerant and been told to "go nuts".

"Who the bastard is that!" Mom shouted, a note of disbelief in her voice.

The figure, hearing her voice carry across the landing field, replied:

"It's me, Bender."

* * *

Fry crouched behind what he supposed was a fuel truck and watched the carnage unfold. Bender was surprisingly adept at fighting giant robots, and had already taken down two of them while working on a third simultaneously. Leela, meanwhile, was leading the rest of the group towards Mom's shuttle, ignoring laser blasts from every destructor-bot in the area. Fry had been given a very important job: to stall the engines using a large ice chunk that he'd picked up from the door. Hopefully, the special ice would gum up her engines like it had done with theirs.

Ignoring the laser fire and harsh robotic profanities, Fry crept carefully towards the ship. If his nervousness could have been measured on a scale of one to ten, it would have weighed in at a solid thirty five.

The ship's exhaust port was small, but easily obstructed. Fry wondered why they didn't have some kind of a shield as he shoved a piece of the ice up under the grate. It would seem like a useful addition to have on such an important piece of equipment, but then he was no ship designer.

"Hey!"

Fry wheeled around to see one of Mom's children handling what looked like a frilly suitcase. He looked stringy, kind of nervous.

"What are you doing to that exhaust port? Get away from there!" He was making an attempt to sound fierce, but Fry didn't buy it.

"No sale." Fry said, shoving the rest of the ice into the exhaust port. "Now surrender or I'll… uh, hit you with this laser pistol!"

"A laser pistol? Those went out with the space cowboys, here's a real weapon!"

He produced a giant version of Fry's pistol that looked almost like a hairdryer, its business end grated and glowing with great intensity.

"Say goodbye to your torso, red! Oops!"

The gun was too heavy for him to lift. It dropped to the ground and broke neatly into three pieces.

"Ha! Looks like bigger doesn't always mean more efficiency! Wait, no, that's not how that goes. Bigger means butter? No… Forget it, put your hands up!"

A single laser bolt struck the ground in front of Fry. He looked up to see Mom leaning out of the cockpit door, holding a very large rifle type object in her hand.

"Good thing I know how to handle a weapon, you sissy!"

"Sorry, ma." Larry hung his head.

"Now if you don't mind, we'll be leaving this rock." Mom turned back to reenter the cabin.

"Not if I can say anything about it! Eat boot, you old hag!"

Leela had just entered the scene, leaping over a conveniently placed set of barrels. She charged up the cruiser steps and aimed a flying kick at the old matron. Mom simply stepped out of the way, leaving Leela to fall to the ground and crash back down the steps.

"Are you finished?" she asked politely.

"Yes." Leela answered, her face to the floor.

"Larry, get your ass up here!" Larry complied almost instantly. Mom stepped down the ladder to the pavement, stepping past Leela who was still rubbing her head in pain. Fry pointed his pistol squarely at her.

"Don't even try it, old lady. I've got this thing sealed up tight, you're not going anywhere! Ha ha ha!"

Fry's laughter faded as Mom reached in and pulled out the chunk, freeing the exhaust port. "Word to the wise, dimwit. When you've got your enemy in your sights, just shoot him."

As an example, she fired her laser gun at his head. Fry fell backwards as a laser bolt whizzed by him, singing off a few hairs in the process. Mom turned and ran back up the cruiser steps, ignoring various laser blasts from Leela who, by any standard, was not a very good markswoman. The ship started its engines with a blast, sending a yelping Fry skittering across the tarmac with his hair on fire. After burying himself in a welcome nearby coolant barrel, he looked up to see Mom's ship rising to the open hangar door in the wall above them.

"She's getting away! Bender, stop her!"

"I'd love to, but I've got problems of my own here!" Bender was currently grappling with a very tenacious veteran destructor-bot. "C'mon, pally, that all the horsepower you got? I've seen minivans with more towing power than you! Your mother was a-."

Before Bender could complete his insult a single robotic hand slapped his head away from his new body, sending him flying into the wall. The destructor-bot, looking about as pleased as a destructor-bot could, then ripped his opponent's lifeless torso in two.

"You cheated!" Bender called from the floor.

Mom's cruiser was now high above the hanger bay, reaching for the opening in the ceiling. They couldn't stop her now. The group congregated underneath the ship, as if simply looking at it would bring it back down.

"We have to do something!" Leela said.

Fry didn't work well under high pressure, but his mind was racing faster that it had ever raced before. _"Think Fry, think." _His mind called out to him, _"What did they use in all those sci-fi movies to stop escaping ships?" _He knew the answer, but it was buried somewhere in a pile of useless facts about solving equations and how to build spice racks. His thoughts turned to how spices were made, on farms out somewhere in the Pacific. They used tractors to plow farms. They picked spices up on ships, and ships had sails, which were held up by beams.

"Tractor… beam… tractor beam! That's it! We'll use a tractor beam to reel them back in!"

"There are no tractor beams in this hangar." The Forman said sadly.

"Crap."

Fry went back to thinking, but this time nothing came out. His eyes panned wildly around the room, to the cargo hold, to the traffic control tower, to the cargo dock with its harpoon-like cargo grabber…

And then Fry got a second idea.

He ran towards the cargo grabber, hoping that what he was about to do wouldn't blow up in his face and create a huge mess. He climbed up into the seat of the grabber, turned it on, and reeled in its clamp that was dangling over the side of the hangar bay.

"Fry, what are you doing?" Leela asked. Fry didn't answer, but he hoped he could show by example. Once the clamp was reeled in, he pointed it at Mom's escaping cruiser.

"Smile, you crazy old lady." He grinned, imitating an old movie he saw once on cable. He pressed the launch button, sending a magnetic clamp attached to a diamond fiber cable careening towards Mom's ship. It struck the side fin and bounced off.

Fry reeled in again, hoping this time he could figure out how to aim before Mom escaped. The next shot hit squarely on the underside of the ship. Fry yelled in triumph and the group cheered as the ship fishtailed from left to right in an attempt to shake the magnetic harpoon. The engines roared violently, sending a wave of heat down the hangar bay tunnel. The plain ice decorum lining the walls began to melt, sending water in small droplets down onto the floor like a summer rain shower. Smoke began to billow out the exhaust port, a sign of the engines being pushed to their limits.

Finally, a loud bang resounded throughout the room, and flames erupted from the back of the ship. The craft shuddered in mid flight, and began its descent back to the hangar bay floor. The cheers from the group turned into yells of panic as the luxury craft barreled back towards Fry and the grappling cannon. Fry leaped down from the cannon, but it was not enough time to get away. The ship crashed into the floor, sweeping towards Fry and the cannon. They connected with a loud crash.

"Fry!" Leela yelled over the din. Fry didn't answer back.

The ship came to a rest on one side. Its engine's wrecked, its exterior paint job ruined, and its overall frame slightly worse for the wear. Trapped underneath that rubble was Fry, in a tremendous amount of pain due to the craft smashing him into the ground. He hovered on the edge of consciousness for a few moments, then fell into a deep, dreamless semi-coma.

* * *

**Author's Note:** o.o ...


	16. Chapter 16

**Epilogue**

Fry didn't know how long he was out for, but when he came to he noticed a couple things out of place. For one thing, he knew when he went unconscious that he was wearing his trademark jacket and blue pants combo, not a hospital gown. Also, he was trapped on an ice planet that was about to be destroyed by a comet that Mom had pulled into a lower orbit. Now, however, everything seemed quiet.

He opened his eyes a little wider, the light streaming in from the windows blinding him. He was in a hospital bed, wearing a hospital gown, hooked up to something that resembled a hospital heart monitoring system.

"Ah, our patient is awake I see."

Fry looked over to the doorway to see a large floating orb wearing what looked like a white chassis standing there. He was holding a clipboard in one metal hand.

"Hey, I remember you. You're that doctor that thought I was a robot." Fry said.

"Yes. I am substituting for a friend."

"Isn't that illegal?"

"Oh look, your friends have come to see you." The doctor stepped aside to show Leela and Bender in the doorway. Leela looked glad to see her friend awake. Bender was smoking a cigar.

"I'll leave you to chat." The doctor turned and glided back down the hallway, much faster than he had before. Leela sat down on Fry's bedside, while Bender leaned up against the wall.

"What happened? Did we win?" Fry asked eagerly.

"Yup, we won." Leela said triumphantly. "I guess you were right about blowing things up."

Fry smiled. "What happened to Mom?"

"We took her and her sons back with us in the ship. They're going on trial before the DOOP next month."

"Word on the street is she's going to bribe the jury, three to one odds." Bender said with the finesse of an expert gambler.

"Sounds great. What about Brannigan?"

"Court-martialed for dereliction of duty," Leela said, beaming. "Of course Kif got sentenced with him, so it's not much of a victory."

"Poor Kif." Fry said.

"Ah, he'll bounce back." Bender said dismissively.

"So, did the ship get fixed okay?" Fry questioned.

"Still runs like a charm. We had to get someone to tow it back from Ice XI for us, though. Your medical bills also cost a bundle."

"How much was it?"

"Pretty much exactly what we would've been paid if none of this had happened."

"Is the Professor mad?" Fry winced.

"Oh my yes, extremely." There came a voice from outside the door. Professor Farnsworth stepped into the room, followed by Amy, Hermes, and Zoidberg. For some unfathomable reason, they were all wearing Hawaiian shirts.

"Sorry, Professor," Fry said sheepishly.

"Oh, think nothing of it. What's a few thousand between family?" Farnsworth gave his great great et cetera uncle a gentle hug, which was rather unusual for him. "Besides, a healthy crew is much more important than a healthy bottom line."

Fry looked over at Hermes. "Is the Professor okay?"

"He's on barbiturates. One look at your medical bill sent him tru' da' roof."

"Ah."

"Professor, why don't we go back to the lobby and ride the magical candy pony again?" Amy prompted.

"Oh, certainly! That wonderful horse always keeps my spirits up!" The Professor replied giddily, leaving the room with Amy guiding him. Zoidberg followed after telling Fry to get well soon. Hermes straightened out a few things with Fry, including several waivers for the company insurance policy, and left. Only Leela and Bender were left in the room now.

"Well," Bender said, mock stretching, "not that this hasn't been fun and all, but I've got a very important set of cockfights going on in the Bronx this afternoon. Hope you get well, buddy."

"See ya, Bender. Enjoy your cockfight."

And with that, Bender slipped out the door. Leela looked at Fry, and Fry looked back wearily. He'd been through a lot in the past couple of days, they all had. Only at a place like Planet Express could you get into so much trouble and do so many amazing things, then come back home and do them all over again the next day.

Leela leaned forward planted a kiss on Fry's forehead. "Get some rest, Fry." she said sweetly. And she left Fry alone with his thoughts.

Fry leaned back and closed his eyes. Another adventure had been completed, and the only thing left to do now was to get some sleep. Suddenly, he remembered something very important. He sat up in his bed.

"What happened to my wallet?" He asked.

* * *

**Author's Note: **And we are done. I'd like to thank everybody who took time to read this and affirm my feelings that I am in no way a mediocre writer. I'd also like to give a little shout out to everybody who wrote a review: Ghostface 317, Amiee in Whaleland, jellymaster, EaglesLover, Swann Hunter, Vulpine Joker, Psycho Zeke, the great JustNibblin (love his work), and OzQueene. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I plan to look at your stuff and write some reviews, so look for me on your pages in a few months.

I'm also planning to go over the story and fix a couple errors. Nothing big, just a few misspellings and such. If you see anything wrong, let me know.

I also do not own Futurama, which is the property of 20th (or 30th) Century Fox and Matt Groening. Please do not sue me, as I have no monies.

What's next? Eh, I'm not sure. I'm probably going to take a little sabattical then get right back at it in a couple months. I also plan to answer any questions you've got about the story, so aks me if you wants to aks me.

Thanks for playing, and I'll see you next time.

-Xoanon

P.S: New episodes of Futurama start June 24th at 10:00c, be there.


End file.
